纤维卷绕型柔性人工肌肉大变形致动与多功能复合机制研究

The driving technologies for the robots exhibit problems of complicated structure, large stiffness, difficulty for the combination with the soft robot, etc, which limit the development of the communion between the robot and human significantly. The fiber twisted type soft artificial muscle has merits of simple structure, low cost, large stroke, high power weight ratio and good output linearity, which make it show great potential on the application in the field of flexible driving. This project focuses on the flexible driving for the communion between the robot and human. The mechanism of the large deformation actuating and multi-function compositing of the fiber twisted type soft artificial muscle are the research emphases. A new idea of twisting the polymer fiber, the heating fiber, the functional material for rigidity tuning and the sensing fiber together is proposed to achieve the aim of multi-function compositing. The temperature-stress-deformation mathematic model of the artificial muscle will be developed. Methods for the rigidity tuning by using different functional materials will be explored. Sensing methods for the measurements of the temperature and the displacement of the soft artificial muscle will be established. The fabricating process for the artificial muscle using multi-fibers with different materials, which will accomplish the goal of uniform heating, rigidity tuning with large range and accurate sensing for the temperature. The control method for the precise output displacement of the soft artificial muscle will be established. This work can provide key technology for the flexible driving, and promote the development of the robot-human communion.

现有机器人驱动技术普遍存在的结构较复杂、刚度较大和与柔性机器人结合较复杂等实际问题，极大程度地限制了人-机共融的发展与突破。纤维卷绕型柔性人工肌肉具有结构简单、成本低、行程长、功率密度高和输出线性度好的优势，初步展示出在柔性驱动技术领域的潜在优势。本项目将以面向人-机共融的柔性驱动为核心，重点开展柔性人工肌肉大变形致动机制及变刚度、自传感的多功能复合机制研究，提出将聚合物纤维、加热丝、变刚度功能材料及传感纤维复合卷绕来实现多功能复合的基本思想，建立人工肌肉的温度-应力-变形数学模型，探索基于不同功能材料的变刚度功能实现策略，建立适用于柔性人工肌肉的温度、位移自传感实现方法，探索适用于不同材质纤维复合卷绕的人工肌肉制备工艺，使其可以实现均匀加热、大范围刚度调整和温度的准确监测，并深入研究适用于柔性人工肌肉的精确位置控制方法。相关研究将为柔性驱动提供关键的基础支撑，并促进人-机共融的发展。

本项目基于机器人技术面向人-机-环境实现共融的发展过程中对新型柔性驱动技术的实际需求而提出，以功率密度高、变形量大、使用寿命长且廉价的卷绕型人工肌肉为研究对象，针对其致动机制不明确、精确控制方法欠缺、功能单一、制备方法不完善等基础问题，展开了卷绕型人工肌肉的力学模型、控制方法、多功能融合、制备工艺等方面的研究，旨在深入揭示该类柔性人工肌肉的变形致动机制，并将变刚度、自传感等功能与人工肌肉实现复合。设计了一种高出力、大变形、快响应及具有自传感功能的新型人工肌肉，其自重仅为0.1g，在1500g负载下可实现7%的变形，在300g负载下可实现33%的变形；利用温度自传感实现了对该型人工肌肉的精确控制，温度控制精度±1℃。此外，采用导线纤维制作了一种具有柔性传感能力的人工肌肉，利用差分布置的方法减小了其漂移与迟滞，并且提高了测量线性度，该型人工肌肉在多维角度测量的均方根误差小于4.3%。此外，所研发的各型人工肌肉在软体机器人、张拉机器人及温度自适应机构等领域得到了应用，充分证明了本项目成果在共融机器人柔性驱动领域的实用价值。本项目相关研究成果发表学术论文8篇（全部为国际权威SCI期刊论文，中科院一区TOP期刊论文2篇，JCR一区期刊论文4篇）；申请国家授权发明专利共8项，已授权4项；培养已毕业硕士4人，另有3名博士研究生和1名硕士研究生正在本项目的资助下开展课题研究。