Cooperative elastomeric multi-actuator platform (CALMAR)

协作多执行器系统将是具有远见的未来应用的重要组成部分，如机器人、医疗器械和先进的用户界面。这类设备的潜在使用范围从纳米级到微观和宏观级，在纳米级上运行，许多现象都有其起源。从概念上讲，它们在不同的规模范围内差别很大。它们变得越大，技术需求就越接近人的能力。他们应该能够独立地实现复杂的动作和任务序列，感知他们的环境，并根据情况自主行动。适当强大的机器人多致动器传感器结构是难以解决的重大技术挑战之一，对于小型系统来说，由于尺寸限制的功能、技术和综合限制，这些挑战大大放大了这些挑战。需要具有必要灵敏度的传感器、合适的执行器、用于控制或调节信息处理的硬件和软件，以及组装和系统集成策略。例如，对于传统的刚性机器人，这不可避免地导致硬件和软件复杂性的显著增加，以及能量和可持续性平衡的相应恶化，因为需要更多的信息处理电子设备、传感器和执行器。在这个项目中，我们将开发互连的、分布式的Hasel-Det-Des执行器模块，这需要先进的方法。通过几个周期的设计、原型和计量研究来进行产品开发和优化的传统流程已不再适用。我们将开发基于模拟的替代设计方法，通过虚拟设计实现大部分开发和优化。设计方法是通过在不同抽象级别虚拟地描述系统的底层模型层次来辅助的。由HASEL、DET或DES组成的基本单元被协同地组合成单执行器模块，这些单执行器模块本身代表协作弹性多执行器平台(CALMA)的子模块，可以自由地确保协作行为、多级驱动、多稳定性以及内部和外部刺激的固有传感等功能。它是在结构和行为模型的帮助下设计的。然后可以有效地模拟每个参数对系统行为的影响，以优化系统以获得所需的行为。整体多变量控制策略将为明确定义的系统行为提供最少的控制输入。通过使用要开发的基于模型的工具箱，可以根据现有的Hasel-Des-DEA基本单元和基本功能汇编相应应用程序的最佳配置。最后，通过加法制造实现了预期的多执行器协同平台，并对其进行了详细的研究。

Collaborative multi-actuator systems will be important components for visionary future applications, such as robotics, medical appliances and advanced user interfaces. The potential range of use of such devices spans from the nanoscale, where they operate at a scale where many phenomena have their origin, to the micro- and macroscale. Conceptually, they vary considerably across the size scales. The larger they become, the more the technical requirements approach human capabilities. They should be able to independently realise complex sequences of movements and tasks, perceive their environment, and act autonomously according to the situation. Appropriately powerful robotic multi-actuator sensor structures are among the significant, barely solved technical challenges, which are considerably amplified for small-scale systems by the functional, technological, and integrative constraints of the size limitation. Sensors with the necessary sensitivities, suitable actuators, hardware and software for controlling or regulating information processing, and strategies for assembly and system integration are required. For conventional rigid robots for instance, this inevitably leads to a significant increase in the complexity of hardware and software and a corresponding deterioration in the energy and sustainability balance, because even more information processing electronics, sensors and actuators are required. In this project we will develop interconnected, distributed HASEL-DET-DES actuator modules that requires advanced methods. The classical process of product development and optimization through several cycles of design, prototyping and metrological investigations is no longer suitable. We will develop alternative simulation-based design methods that realize a large part of the development and optimization by a virtual design. The design methodology is aided by underlying the model hierarchy describing the system virtually at different abstraction levels. Base units, consisting of HASEL, DET or DES, are synergistically combined to single-actuator modules, which themselves represent sub-modules for the cooperative elastomeric multi-actuator platform (CALMAR), with the freedom to ensure several functionalities as cooperative behavior, multilevel actuation, multistability and inherent sensing of internal and external stimuli. It is designed with the help of structural and behavioural models. The influence of each parameter on the system behaviour can then be efficiently simulated to optimize the system for a desired behaviour. A holistic multivariable control strategy will offer minimum control inputs for well-defined system behaviour. By using a model-based toolbox to be developed, the optimum configuration for the respective application can be compiled from the available HASEL-DES-DEA base units and basic functions. Finally, the intended cooperative multi-actuator platform will be realised by additive manufacturing and investigated in detail.