Test Bed 4: Mobile Human Scale Equipment
Fluid Power Rescue Robot
Leader
Michael Goldfarb (Vanderbilt), Wayne Book (Geoergia Tech)
Statement of Test Bed Goals
Develop and demonstrate a fluid-powered compact robot crawler with significantly improved force, power, and energy capabilities relative to motor/battery-powered versions, and to demonstrate intuitive, effective, and efficient human control of the multi-legged test bed.
Test Bed Role in Support of Strategic Plan
The Center will both significantly improve existing fluid power applications and will introduce new transformative approaches to fluid power technology in the human and subhuman power range. The primary role of this test bed is to concretely demonstrate the latter (the introduction of new transformative approaches to fluid power). The test bed serves several of the Center’s “Key Strategic Goals” as stated in the strategic plan, including the development of “new to the world” transformative technologies, the potential jump-starting of new industries, and the goal of embracing the stewardship of society.
Fundamental Research Barriers and Methodologies for Addressing Them
Development includes several challenges in the energetics, such as implementation of on-board power at this scale, and control of hot gas, which requires development of custom valves. Higher forces will be required for some operations and generations 2 and 3 of the robot development use hydraulic power generated by the hot gas vane motor and the free piston engine. Effective control utilizing both autonomous and human directed behavior will be necessary for rescue and other applications with commercial potential. The dynamic behavior of these implementations will be quite different from electrically actuated, wheeled or tracked robots and also different from applications where the human is physically present on the machine, like the excavator. Projects in augmented, multimodal interfaces incorporate simulated and physical testing. Principles of human/machine interfacing learned in these situations will support teleoperated and shared control of other hydraulic systems.
Achievements to Date
Generation two design has been completed, based on current chemofluidic approach. Front legs of generation one prototype have been fabricated and have been tested. Custom valves and associated control electronics have been fabricated and tested. Rear legs are currently under construction, and should be completed and tested by the 36th month of the ERC. An operator workstation with adjustable and programmable features is operational at Georgia Tech. It incorporates a head tracking display that steers the remote camera and haptic control currently operating a surrogate pair of legs pending the vavailability of the hot gas prototype. The workstation also controls a kinematic simulation of the four legged robot to prepare for operating the physical robot. Preliminary studies of the capabilities provided by this setup have been performed by GT and NC A&T. UMN has experimented with control of the legs using passivity approaches.
The operator workstation with adjustable configuration and reprogrammable displays can control a two-legged surrogate rescue robot.