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

这个合作研究项目的目标是让爱荷华州立大学和麻省理工学院的研究人员能够寻找方法，通过使用虚拟现实来改进顺应机构的设计和制造。与传统的刚性连杆机构不同，柔顺机构通过机构构件的柔度和变形来实现运动引导。目前，柔顺机构的设计是通过两个截然不同的研究团体进行的：机械设计团体和精密机械设计团体，前者基于基本设计参数的数值模拟和优化(例如拓扑综合)进行设计，后者的设计工程师主要依赖于严重依赖设计者经验的基于约束的方法。虚拟现实将被用来提供一个三维沉浸式设计环境，在这个环境中，可以利用数学上的严谨性和设计者对机构力学的直观理解来实现机构的柔顺设计，以设计三维柔顺机构。这项工作将改变学生、科学家和工程师对精密仪器、MEMS、NEMS、柔顺机器人和消费类产品的柔顺机构的思考、概念化和工程设计的方式，建立一个基于约束柔顺机构设计理论和虚拟现实的柔顺机构设计的工程框架。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，工程师可以在其中快速探索设计空间，生成基于约束的设计概念(拓扑)，评估概念并执行详细设计。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，使他们在寻找关键问题的设计解决方案时有新的选择，从而为制造和产品设计带来新的机构解决方案。

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.