Collaborative Research: Constraint-based Compliant Mechanism Design using Virtual Reality as a Design Interface

这个合作研究项目的目的是让爱荷华州立大学和麻省理工学院的研究人员可以通过使用虚拟现实来研究改进兼容机制的设计和制造的方法。与传统的刚性连杆机构不同，柔性机构通过机构成员的柔度和变形来实现运动引导。目前，柔性机构的设计是通过两个截然不同的研究团体进行的：机构设计团体，其设计基于基本设计参数的数值模拟和优化，例如拓扑综合；精密机械设计团体，其设计工程师主要依赖于基于约束的方法，这些方法严重依赖于设计师的经验。虚拟现实将被用来提供一个三维的沉浸式设计环境，在这个环境中，可以利用数学的严密性以及设计师对机构力学的直观理解来实现柔顺机构的设计。这项工作将通过建立基于约束的柔性机构设计理论和虚拟现实的柔性机构设计工程框架，改变学生、科学家和工程师对精密仪器、MEMS、NEMS、柔性机器人和消费产品低成本机构的柔性机构的思考、概念化和工程设计方式。虚拟现实与强大而合理的基于约束的设计方法相结合，将提供一个自然的三维设计环境，工程师可以快速探索设计空间，生成基于约束的设计概念（拓扑），评估概念并进行详细设计。由此产生的设计框架将允许更多的工程师设计复杂的合规机构，为他们在寻找关键问题的设计解决方案时提供新的选择，从而为制造和产品设计提供新的机构解决方案。

This objective of this collaborative research project is so that researchers at Iowa State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology can look at ways to improve the design and manufacturing of compliant mechanisms through the use of virtual reality. Unlike the traditional rigid-link mechanisms, compliant mechanisms achieve motion guidance via the compliance and deformation of the mechanism's members. Design of compliant mechanisms currently occurs through the work of two distinctly different research communities: the mechanism design community, which bases designs on numerical simulation and optimization, e.g. topology synthesis, of basic design parameters, and the precision machine design community, where design engineers rely largely upon constraint-based methods that are heavily dependant upon the experience of the designer. Virtual reality will be used to provide a three-dimensional immersive design environment where compliant mechanism design can be achieved using mathematical rigor coupled with a designer's intuitive understanding of mechanism mechanics to design three-dimensional compliant mechanisms.This work will change the way students, scientists, and engineers think about, conceptualize, and engineer compliant mechanisms for precision instruments, MEMS, NEMS, compliant robotics and low-cost mechanisms for consumer products, by establishing an engineering framework for design of compliant mechanisms based on constraint-based compliant mechanism design theory and virtual reality. Virtual reality, combined with powerful and rational constraint-based design methods, will provide a natural three-dimensional design environment where engineers can rapidly explore the design space to generate constraint-based design concepts (topology), evaluate the concepts and perform detailed design. The resulting design framework will allow a broader group of engineers to design complex compliant mechanisms, giving them new options to draw upon when searching for design solutions to critical problems, resulting in novel mechanism solutions for manufacturing and product design.