Design and Actuation of Shape-Changing Mechanical Devices

机构的设计往往是现代机电一体化中被忽视的一个方面，现代机电一体化通常倾向于依赖复杂的控制策略和复杂的传感器和执行器。然而，在过去的几十年里，包括申请人在内的研究人员利用自适应机制提出了机电一体化系统。这些机制的特点是，它们的大部分--如果不是全部--控制任务被委托给系统的机械布局，而不是交给电子板。自适应连杆机构可以被认为是形状改变机构的一个亚种，其中形状适应的原因是设备外部的。自适应甚至变形机制直到最近才在机器人学中被考虑，因为最常见的趋势是期望计算设备日益增长的能力将允许轻松高效地控制所有系统，尽管它们本身就很复杂。然而，这一预测只是部分实现了，因为现代数字系统计算能力的增加并不总是能够克服所有这些缺点。这里提出的研究计划源于申请人的早期工作，并建议沿着四个专注于航空航天和生物医学的研究方向，将最近的发现扩展到新的应用。在这两个行业的机电系统中引入自适应变形机构，将通过减少所需的执行器和传感器的数量以及它们的控制负担来显著降低成本。这一研究计划将解决具有挑战性和激动人心的问题，预计将对相关研究领域产生重大影响。先进的机电一体化系统的开发有望引起国际研究界和加拿大工业界的关注。事实上，这一提议在加拿大公司走在技术前沿的领域具有潜在的应用价值。

The design of mechanisms is often a neglected aspect of modern mechatronics which typically prefers to rely on complex control strategies and sophisticated sensors and actuators. However, over the past decades, mechatronic systems have been proposed by researchers, including the applicant, taking advantage of self-adaptive mechanisms. These mechanisms are characterized by the property of having a large part-if not all-of their control tasks delegated to the mechanical layout of the system rather than to an electronic board. Self-adaptive linkages can be considered a subspecies of shape-changing mechanisms where the cause for the shape adaptation is external to the device. Self-adaptive or even shape-changing mechanisms have only recently been considered in robotics since the still most common trend has been to expect that the growing power of computational devices would allow to easily control all systems with great efficiency despite their inherent complexity. However, this prediction has only been partially fulfilled as the increase of the computation capabilities of modern digital systems has not always been able to overcome all these drawbacks. The research initiative proposed here stems from from the applicant's earlier works and proposes to extend recent discoveries to new applications along four research thrusts focusing on aerospace and biomedical. The introduction of self-adaptive shape-changing linkages in the mechatronic systems of these two industries will significantly reduce their costs by decreasing the number of required actuators and sensors as well as their control burden. Challenging and exciting issues will be addressed in this research program and the impact on the associated research field is expected to be significant. The development of advanced mechatronic systems will hopefully attract the attention of the international research community and the industry in Canada. Indeed, this proposal has potential applications in areas where Canadian companies are at the forefront of the technology.