Bio-inspired design methodology of sensor-actuator-structure integrated system for artificial muscle using SMA

Addressing the two bottlenecks of present robotic design, low force-to-weight ratio and low integration level, this paper presents a general bio-inspired design methodology supported using a sensor-actuator-structure integrated system fully inspired by natural muscle. The system design is centred on the reproduction of natural muscle's contraction mechanism unveiled by multi-scale researches, and the versatility and morphology of muscle are approximated concurrently through multi-objective and coupled iterative optimizations. The effectiveness of the proposed bio-inspired design methodology is verified by the experiments demonstrating the muscle-like FW ratio and mechanical behaviour of the integrated system. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.