Title :
A motorless artificial limb and its control architecture
Author :
Chapman, R. ; Pedrycz, W. ; Rae, S.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Alberta Univ., Edmonton, Alta., Canada
Abstract :
In the next generation of robots, there are no motors and construction is from simple everyday materials. One of the stars of this evolution, is a wire which contracts when heated and is known as muscle wire. A simple soda straw provides a strong structure from which segmented limbs can be constructed. A flex sensor is used at the joint to measure the actual bend angle. A microcontroller controls the limb based on input from a higher level controller. The article covers the construction of a limb, characterizes it and presents some control solutions.
Keywords :
closed loop systems; electric actuators; microcontrollers; robots; three-term control; bend angle; control architecture; control solutions; flex sensor; higher level controller; microcontroller; motorless artificial limb; muscle wire; robots; segmented limbs; simple soda straw; Actuators; Artificial limbs; Computer architecture; Contracts; Control systems; Electric resistance; Microcontrollers; Muscles; Prototypes; Wire;
Conference_Titel :
Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1999 IEEE Canadian Conference on
Conference_Location :
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-5579-2
DOI :
10.1109/CCECE.1999.804979
