Questions tagged [actuator]
A motor, not necessarily electric, which converts energy into some kind of motion.
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Which type of actuator will be suitable for a very strong robot arm?
I wish to build a robotic arm that can lift a useful amount of weight (such as 3-6 kg on an arm that can extend to approx 1.25 meters). What actuators are available to accomplish this? The main ...
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How can I integrate a smart phone with my robotics project? [closed]
Smart phones these days typically come with a gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, camera, and GPS sensor all on board. They also usually have a connection to the internet with Wifi and mobile data ...
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Creating a fast, uniform, linear actuator
Most of the linear actuators I've seen are nonuniform and/or slow. Those using a cam or crankshaft-like mechanism (and nearly anything hydraulic/pneumatic) cannot be moved at a constant speed without ...
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What determines the amount of noise an actuator produces?
Many robots and other mechanical devices produce the signature whirring noise as they move, some produce less. What makes the difference? What restrictions a silence requirement places on a robot?
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Adding an Actuator or Force to a (Featherstone) Articulated Rigid Body Model
I'm working on a project where I need to model a system that is essentially comprised of a series of ball-and-socket joints attached to a base, which is attached in turn to a prismatic joint (rail).
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How do I decide the size of the time steps between sensing and control actuation?
My Background:
My experience is in solid mechanics and FEA. So I have zero experience in robotics/controls.
Problem Description
I'm developing a control strategy to stabilize a complicated 6-...
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How to open a sliding window?
I live in an apartment that has sliding windows in it. The apartment is naturally warm because we live above a mechanical room, such that we either opened the windows or ran the air conditioning ...
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Is there a rule of thumb for actuator torque overhead?
When installing a servo or other actuator, I measure the force needed to perform whatever action is needed and find an actuator that can generate more than the necessary force. However, I recently ...
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Electronic circuit for heating nylon fishing line muscle
I'm trying to make artificial muscles using nylon fishing lines (see http://io9.com/scientists-just-created-some-of-the-most-powerful-muscl-1526957560 and http://writerofminds.blogspot.com.ar/2014/03/...
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Pushing Buttons Remotely over Ethernet
So I want to program something that will simply push a button, but controllable over ethernet. I'm new to robotics so I don't know where to start. What's the best way to control an actuator over a ...
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How can a coaxial stepper motor be used to drive the Z axis effector of a SCARA robot?
I am new to robotics and mechanical engineering. I am trying to understand how the Z-axis (and effector) of a SCARA robot can be driven by a stepper motor with it's shaft coaxially aligned along the ...
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Actuator design. plausible?
So i got this idea waay back when i was in highschool as a kind of electromagnetic analogue to a biological muscle. it is basically a long stack of thin electromagnets connected in parallel.
.
when ...
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What types of actuators do these industrial bots use?
I have a particular example robot that interests me:
http://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/1829834/foxconns-foxbot-army-close-hitting-chinese-market-track-meet-30-cent
See first image, the ...
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looking for a miniature joystick, but in reverse
Does anyone know if small mechanical actuators exist which can be controlled electrically, sort of like a miniature joystick, but in reverse. Instead of it picking up mechanical movement and ...
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Why do series elastic actuators have more accurate and stable force control?
The other day, somebody was telling me about a robot in their lab, and they mentioned that it has "series elastic" actuators. But after doing a bit of Googling, I'm still not sure as to what this ...
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How do I dispense a greasy fluid?
I'm a agricultural engineering student and complete newbie trying to build a simple mechanism attached to a drone that dispenses a grease-type fluid. However, since I'm not familiar with the field, I'...
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What actuator types exist that remain locked in their last position like hydraulic piston?
I would like to find an electronic actuator that mimics the characteristics of a hydraulic actuator, in that the position remains fixed without power drain when the actuator is not moving. Which ...
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Calculate required motor torque through Harmonic Drive
I have a term project which is controlling a two-link manipulator with harmonic drive installed at each joint.
To control, i used Computed control method to determine the torque needed for each joints ...
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Stewart platform as robotic wrist joint
I'm planning the design of a wrist for a humanoid robot. I would like to choose a design that is sturdy while allowing for dexterity comparable to a human wrist.
One option that was presented to me ...
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Design and construction of universal robotic arm (5kg, 1m)
i am working on my master's thesis about design and construction of universal robotic arm.
Goal of my work is to design 5 DOF robotic arm. Something like on the picture:
I need it to be able to ...
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Actuator to control steam valve
I have a steam radiator at home and it has a valve similar to the picture below.
Please note that the valve doesn't have grooves on top to attach things to.
I want to build something to turn it on ...
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Tiny high torque actuator/sensor design
I need to assemble a small (about 8cm x 5cm x 5cm maximum), actuator with as much torque as I can get at that size. It will be driving a small reel and pulley (reel is ~1.25cm^3, 5mm center diameter), ...
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2Nm small motor
Currently designing a spherical wrist, I want to manipulate a 300gr payload.
the design has a 200mm span, so I'm guessing at a 1.1Nm (considering the weight of structure & motors).
I've looked at ...
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What is an "actuation state"
The paper A Feedforward Control Approach to the Local Navigation Problem for Autonomous Vehicles by Alonzo Kelly uses the term actuation space.
Feedforward solves the historically significant ...
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Linear actuators in a cartesian robots
I would like to make a Cartesian robot with maximum speed of up to $1ms^{-1}$ in x/y plane, acceleration $2ms^{-2}$ and accuracy at least 0.1mm. Expected loads: 3kg on Y axis, 4kg on X axis. Expected ...
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Spring with electronically adjustable stiffness
I would like to build a mechanical module that acts like a spring with electronically controllable stiffness (spring rate).
For instance, let's imagine a solid, metallic cube, 0.5 m each side. On the ...
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How to make door opening to the top
I need to make this construction (door is closed by default, door is opened to the top). This is the scheme:
Red rectangle on the picture is the aperture, blue rectangle is the door (weight is about ...
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What kind of torque is needed for a small 5-6 axis robotic arm?
I'm new to robotics and I'm looking to make a 5-6 axis robotic arm out of stepper motors but I honestly don't know how much torque I should have for each part. Below I have described in more detail ...
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Repairing non-lubricated linear actuator
I have a Chinese CNC mill (CNC3020T, though several different devices go under this name), and its Z axis was very imprecise, often being randomly off position by as much as 0.5mm. I've disassembled ...
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Choosing motor type for high reliability for many cycles
I am designing a multi modal stent testing machine which will bend, twist, and compress stents (very thin, light, and fragile cylindrical meshes for in arteries) in a tube. The machine will operate at ...
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McKibben artificial muscles and the 400:1 ratio
I was recently reading that those artificial muscles had the highest power/weight ratio while electric motors only have a ratio of less than 100:1. As electrical engineer I have never worked with ...
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Can't Read current on Pololu Dual MC33926 Motor Driver Shield for Arduino
I purchased a Pololu Dual MC33926 Motor Driver Shield for Arduino, and for some reason I cannot read current from the motor controller. On the Serial.println() it just prints weird data (garbage), and ...
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What are the pros and cons of Zip Chain Actuators in robotics? [closed]
Well, I just found out about these Zipper Chain Linear Actuators, but I couldn't find much information comparing these types to other types of actuators.
For example, what is the performance of Zip ...
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What servos are suitable for a robot like Boston Dynamics’ Atlas?
I have seen Boston Dynamics’ robot Atlas do some pretty impressive things, like a backflip, which must put quite large torques on the servomotors.
What servos are there that can generate torques like ...
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Vacuum Lifter: Moving Playing Cards
I'd like to buy a small Vacuum Lifter so that I can move playing cards around with robotics. But my "google-fu" is failing me. I don't really know what search terms to look for... or what webpages to ...
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Building industrial-like robotic arm
I would like to build a 70cm articulated robotic arm (not a scara one) that can lift between 10kg and 15kg (10kg would be awesome already, this payload includes the weight of the arm+gripper) and ...
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Is it worth designing your own components to mount a ball screw?
As explained here I would like to build a MakerArm / Dobot M1 like robotic ARM (SCARA) that can lift few kgs (< 10kg for sure) using a ball screw for the translation on the Z axis.
Right now I ...
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Does MIT Cheetah uses Series Elastic Actuator?
I have been wondering does MIT cheetah purely only use electrical active compliance on it's robot or did they use a Series elastic actuator since they have this webbing tendon?
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Which motors are used in boston spot robot
I want to know which motors or smart servos are used in boston dynamics spot robot. Where can i read its spicification and is it possible to buy the motor?
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Why Hydraulics and Not Motors?
I have noticed everywhere that professional robotics companies use hydraulics over electric motors. I want to know why that is. Why can they make custom electric motors that are really powerful. ...
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Controlling Actuated Robot Hand in Underactuated Manner
We have an allegro hand in our robot, and it is in actuated behavior. In other words, each joint is controlled one or more than one actuator, that is motor. There are 3 actuators for each finger, ...
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Rotary Serial Elastic Actuator
I'm building a 7oF arm with series elastic compliant joints. I need series elasticity because I'm training the robot to do autonomous manipulation using machine learning, and I want force control (and ...
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How can I turn a bowl/glass upside down?
I want to dispense water/cut-vegetables from a glass/bowl(240 ml) by turning it upside down. The screencast shows the idea:
I can directly mount the clamp on a servo motor, but I think that will be a ...
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How can i make a compact soft robot
I want to make a compact (actuators motors and sensors are all in one) soft robot. Actuators can be pneumatic or dielectric. I need suggestions about manufacturating. I'm open to new ideas.
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Can you increase resolution/accuracy by mechanically averaging two actuators?
I'm working on a project using hobby servos to drive a revolute joint, and the servo mechanism doesn't seem to respond when I command a motion of less than about 1 degree. I want to increase the ...
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How to determine actuator and process for PID, and how to intepret the output
Imagine there is a web service (let's say Twitter) that handles tons of requests from around the world. I want to figure out how to let the web service pick a certain amount of (let's say 1 billion) ...
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How to balance a long vertical bar
I have a mobile base (1400x1800x400 mm) which has a vertical bar (1) mounted on its geometric center; this vertical bar has a length of 2500 mm and a diameter of 100 mm and I need to keep it always in ...
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Replace screws with motors!
I am new to this space and the field. Please pardon my lack of intuition or knowledge. I have a recording stand with a join in between. a pair of screws through which the whole apparatus pivots like a ...
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Rostock Delta Robot 3D Printer Degrees of Freedom (DOF)
What is the degrees of freedom (DOF) of the Rostock delta robot 3d printer (delta mechanism that consists of three prismatic joints)?
Here's the link to the delta mechanism I'm referring to:
https://...
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Converting a linear acceleration command into a DC motor command?
I'm constructing a 2 wheels balancing robot which uses a PID controller. I've tuned my parameters on numerical simulations based on a continuous inverted pendulum system so that the simulated ...
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