Development of 1-DOF manipulator with variable rheological joint for instantaneous force

Highly rigid actuators such as a geared motor or hydraulic actuator are widely used in industrial robots. To obtain high-speed motion, actuators need to increase the actuator output. However, to increase high-rigidity actuators output, it is necessary to make actuators larger. In contrast, humans perform motions with instantaneous force such as jumping or throwing by using muscles. These instantaneous forces are realized by accumulating potential energy to the muscles and the muscles releasing the energy in a short time. Therefore, in this study a 1-DOF manipulator with variable rheological joint for instantaneous force using an artificial muscle and a magnetorheological (MR) brake was developed. In this paper, the method of generating instantaneous force for this manipulator was proposed. Further, the experiment of the proposed method was also conducted. As a result, generating instantaneous force by proposed method was realized.