Coupled design of selectively compliant mechanisms and actuators

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Active mechanical systems consist of a passive mechanical system (mechanism) and an actuator system. This proposal focuses on a special case scenario, whereby the mechanical system is a compliant mechanism. Compliant mechanisms perform the function of conventional mechanisms but in principle, they do not have any movable components (bearings, guides or joints). Instead, their functions rely on the targeted deformation of flexible regions.As a rule, compliant systems are designed on the basis of an optimization task. There are numerous factors that show the benefits of extending this kind of methodology to the design of the accompanying actuator system:1) The flexible regions of compliant systems are only capable of bearing concentrated forces to a limited extent. An analysis of local deformations or of the excitation of undesired deformation components must be performed when designing the actuator system, which can be only performed at reasonable expenses within the scope of a formal optimization.2) Compliant systems offer (and in some cases even require) the option of distributed activation. The design of a distributed actuator system is too complex to be undertaken successfully without the help of a formal optimization procedure.3) Synergies can be exploited by coupling the designs of mechanism and actuator system. In particular, it is possible to integrate the load-bearing properties of the actuators into the mechanical design (especially with solid state actuators).Although numerous approaches for the optimization of actuator systems have been documented in the literature, they are not very suitable for the above mentioned objective of an integrated optimization of actuator and compliant mechanism. With the help of the present project, a contribution to the solution of the problem is to be made in the form of an optimization-based design method for active compliant systems.