Publications

This report contains the results of a research effort on advanced robot locomotion. The majority of this work focuses on walking robots. Walking robot applications include delivery of special payloads to unique locations that require human locomotion to exo-skeleton human assistance applications. A walking robot could step over obstacles and move through narrow openings that a wheeled or tracked vehicle could not overcome. It could pick up and manipulate objects in ways that a standard robot gripper could not. Most importantly, a walking robot would be able to rapidly perform these tasks through an intuitive user interface that mimics natural human motion. The largest obstacle arises in emulating stability and balance control naturally present in humans but needed for bipedal locomotion in a robot. A tracked robot is bulky and limited, but a wide wheel base assures passive stability. Human bipedal motion is so common that it is taken for granted, but bipedal motion requires active balance and stability control for which the analysis is non-trivial. This report contains an extensive literature study on the state-of-the-art of legged robotics, and it additionally provides the analysis, simulation, and hardware verification of two variants of a proto-type leg design.

There is a growing need for multi-axis force torque (F/T) sensors to aid in the assembly of micro-scale devices. Many current generation robotic microassembly systems lack the force-feedback needed to facilitate automating common assembly tasks, such as peg-in-hole insertions. Currently, most microassembly operations use vision systems to align components being assembled. However, it is difficult to view high aspect ratio component assemblies under high magnification due to the resulting limited depth-of-field. In addition, this difficulty is compounded as assembly tolerances approach dimensions resolvable with optics or if the mating parts are delicate. This paper describes the development of a high sensitivity F/T sensor. Optimal design theory was applied to determine the configuration that would result in the most sensitive and accurate sensor: Calibration experiments demonstrated that the sensor can resolve down to 200μN and possibly less. Copyright © 2005 by ASME.