Actuators, Volume 9, Issue 4

Traditional rigid robot application in the medical field is limited due to the limited degrees of freedom caused by their material and structure. Inspired by trunk, tentacles, and snakes, continuum robot (CR) could traverse confined space, manipulate...

Inspired by improving the adaptive capability of the robot to external impacts or shocks, the adjustable stiffness behavior in joints is investigated to ensure conformity with the safety index. This paper proposes a new soft actuation unit, namely Ad...

This study investigates the vibration reduction of tall wind-excited buildings using a tuned mass damper (TMD) with an inerter (TMDI). The performance of the TMDI is computed as a function of the floor to which the inerter is grounded as this paramet...

The design of a novel electrothermal microgripper device is shown, which is based on an improved chevron type actuator developed considering their elements parameterization, whose resistive model is also provided. The performance of the microgripper&...

Template-based and additive manufacturing techniques have demonstrated some fabrication routes for creating pneumatic soft actuators. However, as the complexity and capability of the actuators continue to develop, the limitations of these approaches...

While many natural instances of adhesion between cells and biological macromolecules have been elucidated, understanding how to mimic these adhesion events remains to be a challenge. Discovering new biointerface materials that can provide an appropri...

Lower-limb exoskeletons have undergone significant developments for aiding in the ambulation of adults with gait impairment. However, advancements in exoskeletons for the pediatric population have comparatively been lacking. This paper presents a new...

The pneumatic muscle actuator (PMA) has been widely applied in the researches of rehabilitation robotic devices for its high power to weight ratio and intrinsic compliance in the past decade. However, the high nonlinearity and hysteresis behavior of...

Velocity ripple is one of the common problems of modular drive joints, which easily induces vibration and noise and affects motion accuracy. In order to improve the motion control accuracy, a robust method based on dual encoders to eliminate velocity...

A voice coil motor is a simple and linear electromagnetic actuator. Since it has a non-contact force and very low stiffness, it is widely used for precision positioning devices including magnetic levitation systems. During magnetic levitation, high f...

During the last years, great progress was made in material science in terms of concept, design and fabrication of new composite materials with conferred properties and desired functionalities. The scientific community paid particular interest to acti...

This paper proposes a fault estimation and fault-tolerant control strategy with two observers for a pump-controlled electro-hydraulic system (PCEHS) under the presence of internal leakage faults and an external loading force. The mathematical model o...

Primary control of linear motion by variable speed electric motors driving a hydraulic cylinder via a constant displacement pump is an established and successful concept with a frequent use in industry. One problem arises when low or zero motion spee...

Hydraulic linear actuators dominate in high power applications but are much less common in low power (<100 W) systems. One reason for this is the cost: electric actuators in this power range generally exhibit lower performance but are also much le...

This paper presents a Negative Stiffness System (NSS) for vibration isolation and comfort improvement of vehicle seats, which enhances the performance of optimized traditional passive seat suspensions. The NSS is based on a set of two Pneumatic Linea...

This paper proposes the implementation of an assisting technology to a processing/reprocessing mechatronics line (P/RML), comprising the following: two autonomous robotic systems (ARSs), two robotic manipulators (RMs) and three visual servoing system...

This paper addresses diagnosis and prognosis problems for an electric scooter subjected to parameter uncertainties and compound faults (i.e., permanent fault and intermittent fault with non-monotonic degradation). First, the diagnostic bond graph in...

A piezoelectric motor driven by the first-order torsional and first-order flexural (T/F) vibrations is designed, fabricated, and tested in this study. The actuating force is generated by the torsional vibration of the dumbbell-shaped vibrator, while...

The control of tendon-driven actuators is mainly affected by the tendon behavior under stress or strain. The measurement of these parameters on artificial tendons brings benefits on the control and novel approaches for soft robotics actuators. This p...

Since the energy crisis, the further development of a variable speed pump-controlled hydraulic system driven by an electric machine has attracted increasing attention during the past few years. As a response to this, an innovative double pump-control...

The aircraft hydraulic system is very important for the actuation system and its failure has led to a number of catastrophic accidents in the past few years. The reasons for hydraulic loss can be leakage, blockage, and structural damage. Fortunately,...

This paper presents a new accurate multiple model of nonlinear pneumatic lateral forces. The bicycle representation is used in order to build up an easy implemented vehicle dynamic model. Moreover, the Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy approach is applied in...

A metalized plastic capacitor stands a higher chance to clear faults when embodied with thinner electrodes. However, it is not clear whether the same thickness effect applies to carbon-based compliant electrodes in clearing the defects in dielectric...

A solution of the vibration attention problem on a flexible structure from a dynamic vibration absorption perspective is experimentally and numerically studied in this article. Linear and nonlinear dynamic vibration absorbers are properly implemented...

Due to the time-varying nonlinear dynamic, uncertain model and hysteresis characteristics of the pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) actuator, it is not easy to apply model-based control algorithms for monitoring, as well as controlling, the operation...

This article introduces an on-line fault diagnosis (FD) system to detect and recognize open-phase faults in switched reluctance motors (SRMs). Both tasks, detection and recognition, are based on functions built with the same information but from diff...

Hybrid stimuli-responsive soft robots have been extensively developed by incorporating multi-functional materials, such as carbon-based nanoparticles, nanowires, low-dimensional materials, and liquid crystals. In addition to the general functions of...

An electropermanent magnet (EM) can be fixed or rotated without applying the additional power of a wobble motor. This consists of a neodymium magnet and semi-hard magnet. A model to design a wobble motor for a wobble gripper without finite element an...

Dual-slider positioning in a miniaturized system is crucial in many industrial applications. This paper presents a miniaturized dual-slider linear actuator by employing one piezoelectric element (PZT) and integrating the methods of electrostatic adhe...

In the landscape of Industry 4.0, advanced robotics awaits a growing use of bioinspired adaptive and flexible robots. Collaborative robotics meets this demand. Due to human–robot coexistence and interaction, the safety, the first requirement to...

A compact and flexible hydraulic double-cylinder actuation scheme is proposed for use in applications, especially where power density is extremely demanding. In view of flexible amounting requirements, long and thin hoses were utilized to connect two...

Microfluidic structures and devices have been studied over decades for the transport of liquid through internal channels using versatile microfabrication schemes such as surface and bulk micromachining technologies. One challenge in consideration of...

In order to build a motion system with high resolution, fast response, and long travel range in a probe station, a linear ultrasonic motor was investigated as an alternative to the electromagnetic counterpart in a servo system. This work focused on a...

Untethered small-scale soft robots have been widely researched because they can be employed to perform wireless procedures via natural orifices in the human body, or other minimally invasive operations. Nevertheless, achieving untethered robotic moti...

In many applications comprised of multiple platforms with stringent vibration isolation requirements, several vibration isolators are employed to work in tandem. They usually must accomplish two objectives: (i) reduce the vibration level of each plat...

The soft actuator possesses the characteristics of flexibility, environmental adaptability, and human–machine interaction. Firstly, aiming to resolve the limitation of variable stiffness performance of a traditional pneumatic artificial muscle...

Implementation of a prototype of a 4-degree of freedom (4-DOF) upper-limb exoskeleton robot for rehabilitation was described in this paper. The proposed exoskeleton robot has three DOFs at the shoulder joint and one DOF at the elbow joint. The upper-...

Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells demonstrate potential as a comprehensive and general alternative to fossil fuel. They are also considered to be the energy source of the twenty-first century. However, fuel cell systems have non-linear ou...

Jamming is a popular and versatile soft robotic mechanism, enabling new systems to be developed that can achieve high stiffness variation with minimal volume variation. Numerous applications have been reported, including deep-sea sampling, industrial...

Implementation, experimental evaluation and stability analysis of an admittance-controlled teleoperated pneumatic system is presented. A master manipulator navigates a pneumatic slave actuation, which interacts with a human arm as an environment. Con...

The work here described aims to offer a starting point for improving and making a generic maintenance process more efficient, first of all thanks to the use of a cutting-edge technology such as augmented reality, as a key tool that makes it possible...

The ultrasonic manipulation of cells and bioparticles in a large population is a maturing technology. There is an unmet demand for improved theoretical understanding of the particle–particle interactions at a high concentration. In this study,...

The acoustic and flow aspects of the novel synthetic jet actuator (SJA) with fins inside the cavity were experimentally investigated for three types of enclosure design and two models of loudspeaker. The aim of the study is to find the parameter whic...

This paper describes an exact linearizing control approach for a distributed actuation magnetic bearing (DAMB) supporting a thin-walled rotor. The radial DAMB design incorporates a circular array of compact electromagnetic actuators with multi-coil w...

The paper presents the modeling and control design of a floating piston pneumatic gearbox actuator using a grid-based Linear Parameter Varying approach. First, the nonlinear model of the pneumatic actuator is presented, then it is transformed into a...

Microelectromechanical (MEM) Accelerometers measure the accelerations or vibrations experienced by objects due to inertial forces or mechanical excitations. To improve their proof mass displacement, several alternatives have been used, such as the de...

Living systems have evolved to survive in a wide range of environments and safely interact with other objects and organisms. Thus, living systems have been the source of inspiration for many researchers looking to apply their mechanics and unique cha...

This article describes the control of a rotary inverted pendulum utilizing on–off-type cold gas thrusters as the actuators, which have high similarities with thruster actuated spacecrafts with slosh dynamics. The study is completed in three pha...

The work reported here was aimed at improving the practical efficiency of the model-based development and integration of electromechanical actuators. Models are proposed to serve as preliminary design, virtual prototyping, and validation. The first p...

Physical properties of lead-zirconate-titanate (PZT) ceramics change according to the initial electric poling process and electrical boundary conditions. This paper reports the electrothermal, piezothermal, and piezoelectric coupling phenomena in fer...