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Acta Armamentarii ›› 2023, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (11): 3269-3278.doi: 10.12382/bgxb.2023.0730

Special Issue: 群体协同与自主技术

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Design and Modeling of a Bionic Joint with Continuously Variable Stiffness

LIAO Junbei1, YI Shuowen1, LEI Fei1, LIU Siyu1, GUO Zhao1,*(), WANG Zhirui2,3, YAN Tong2,3, DANG Ruina2,3   

  1. 1 School of Power and Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, Hubei, China
    2 China North Artificial Intelligence & Innovation Research Institute, Beijing 100072, China
    3 Collective Intelligence & Collaboration Laboratory, Beijing 100072, China
  • Received:2023-08-08 Online:2023-11-01
  • Contact: GUO Zhao

Abstract:

The design and control of continuous variation capability of robot bionic joint stiffness are the difficult problems in flexible drive technology. In this paper, a bionic joint with continuously variable stiffness is proposed, in which the continuous change from low stiffness to high stiffness is achieved by using a variable moment arm. The main and secondary motors of the bionic joint have large power ratio and compact structure. In order to analyze the relationship between the elastic deformation of bionic joint and the stiffness variation of load, a static model with load conditions is established, and the relationship between the joint stiffness and the angle of main and secondary motors is obtained through simulation. The experiments of torque tracking, step response and stiffness tracking are conducted on the bionic joint. The experimental results show that the bionic joint with continuously variable stiffness has a maximum error of 1.23N·m with a variance of 0.19N·m at a sinusoidal output torque of 16N·m, with the maximum error being 7.7% of the total amplitude, and when the stiffness tracking is in the range of 0.4N·m/(°) to 1.6N·m/(°) for and the output torsion angle is 5°, the maximum error is 0.09N·m/(°), accounting for 9.0% of the total mean stiffness.

Key words: variable stiffness actuator, dual motor drive, bionic joint, stiffness control

CLC Number: