Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering
First Advisor
Alexander Hunt
Term of Graduation
Spring 2024
Date of Publication
7-28-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (M.S.) in Mechanical Engineering
Department
Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Language
English
Subjects
3-D printed springs, Robot locomotion, Robotics
Physical Description
1 online resource (ix, 85 pages)
Abstract
The Agile and Adaptive Robotics Lab is interested in researching the neuromuscular control network of legged animal locomotion. To validate the lab's understanding of biological neural control, synthetic neural networks are developed and applied to biologically inspired legged robots. For a synthetic neural network to operate in the same manner as a biological neural network and produce the same locomotor behavior, the robot that the synthetic neural network is controlling must also mimic its biological counterpart. Previous research produced a quadruped robot hind leg designed with biomimetic passive dynamics by installing spring and damper pairs at each joint, however, an identified area of improvement was to decrease the spring rate of the hip spring. This paper explores new hip joint designs and new hip springs to address the previous concerns. Two manufacturing methods were assessed for the new hip spring: manually winding ASTM A228 steel wire, and 3D printing with Onyx. 3D printing was identified as the preferable manufacturing method, and the quadruped hip was redesigned to integrate the new springs. Relationships between 3D printed spring geometry and spring parameters were experimentally determined for use in future modifications to the robot leg dynamics with varying levels of success. The 3D printed spring proved to be a successful replacement for the metal hip spring to obtain biomimetic passive dynamics in the robot leg. Future work includes implementing a damper to the hip and possibly printing continuous fibers within the springs to improve spring performance repeatability.
Rights
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Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/42436
Recommended Citation
Zheng, Haonan, "Improving Biomimetic Passive Dynamics of a Quadruped Robot Hind Leg Hip Joint with a 3D Printed Torsion Spring" (2024). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 6683.