Human-Safe Robots for Industrial and Domestic Robotic Applications

几十年来，人类一直在设想这样一个未来：机器人渗透到我们的日常生活中，协助和促进我们的活动。然而，尽管不断取得进步，但到目前为止，无处不在的机器人世界仍然局限于科幻小说。一种新的驱动机构可以利用磁流变（MR）流体的独特特性来实现这一梦想。磁流变流体是一类智能材料，可以在外部磁场的作用下瞬间可逆地改变其流变特性。由于其轻便和顺应性，用这种流体开发的执行器提供了一种替代的执行解决方案，具有实现安全所必需的固有特性。与机器人中主要使用的传统的基于电动机的致动器不同，基于核磁共振的致动器提供了类似于人体致动机构的特性。同时，通过改变磁流变液的流变特性，这些致动器可以提供高性能任务所需的大致动扭矩。换句话说，基于磁流变的驱动器可以提供安全的和性能的驱动，因此，在这种驱动范式下开发的机器人可以保证人类的安全。

For decades now, humankind has envisioned a future where robots permeate our daily lives, assisting and facilitating our activities. However, despite incremental advances, a world of ubiquitous robotics remains, to date, confined to science fiction. A novel actuation mechanism can now realize this dream by utilizing unique properties of magneto-rheological (MR) fluids. MR fluids are a class of smart materials that can instantaneously, and reversibly, alter their rheological properties under the application of an external magnetic field. By virtue of their lightness and compliance, actuators developed with such fluids provide an alternative actuation solution with inherent properties necessary to fulfill safety. Unlike traditional electromotor-based actuators that are predominantly used in robotics, MR-based actuators offer characteristics that are similar to human actuation mechanism. At the same time, these actuators can deliver large actuation torque required in high performance tasks by altering the rheological properties of the MR fluids. In other words, MR-based actuators can provide both safe and perfromant actuation, and ergo, the robots developed under this actuation paradigm can be guaranteed to be human-safe. The proposed research is to enhance underlying technologies including MR-based actuator and control strategies required for the design and operation of next generation of human-safe robots. These robots are expected to have significant impacts on current industrial robotic automation while introducing many new possibilities in domestic use of robotic systems in various fields such as homecare, healthcare, food, and entertainment.