Minimally actuated serial robot

Minimally actuated serial robot

In this paper, we propose a novel type of serial robot with minimal actuation. The robot is a serial rigid structure consisting of multiple links connected by passive joints and of movable actuators. The novelty of this robot is that the actuators travel over the links to a given joint and adjust the relative angle between the two adjacent links. The joints passively preserve their angles until...

Controlling Minimally-Actuated Vehicles

Establishing a persistent presence in the ocean with an AUV to observe temporal variability of large-scale ocean processes requires a unique sensor platform. In this paper, we propose a strategy that utilizes ocean model predictions to increase the autonomy and control of Lagrangian or profiling floats for precisely this purpose. An A* planner is applied to a local controllability map generated...

Gait Training using Pneumatically Actuated Robot System

A Minimally Actuated Hopping Rover for Exploration of Celestial Bodies

This paper describes a minimalist hopping robot that can perform basic exploration tasks on Mars or other moderate gravity bodies. We show that a single actuator can control the vehicle’s jumping and steering operations, as well as the panning of an on-board camera. Our novel thrusting linkage also leads to good system efficiency. The inherent minimalism of our hopping paradigm offers interesti...

Sensorized and Actuated Instruments for Minimally Invasive Robotic Surgery

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) challenges the surgeon’s skills due to his separation from the operation area which can be reached with long instruments only. To overcome the drawbacks of conventional MIS robotic surgery systems with integrated haptic feedback play an important role. This paper describes the development of actuated and sensorized instruments for minimally invasive robotic surg...