abstract: The term Poly-Limb stems from the rare birth defect syndrome, called Polymelia. Although Poly-Limbs in nature have often been nonfunctional, humans have had the fascination of functional Poly-Limbs. Science fiction has led us to believe that having Poly-Limbs leads to augmented manipulation abilities and higher work efficiency. To bring this to life however, requires a synergistic combination between robot manipulation and wearable robotics. Where traditional robots feature precision and speed in constrained environments, the emerging field of soft robotics feature robots that are inherently compliant, lightweight, and cost effective. These features highlight the applicability of soft robotic systems to design personal, collaborative, and wearable systems such as the Soft Poly-Limb. This dissertation presents the design and development of three actuator classes, made from various soft materials, such as elastomers and fabrics. These materials are initially studied and characterized, leading to actuators capable of various motion capabilities, like bending, twisting, extending, and contracting. These actuators are modeled and optimized, using computational models, in order to achieve the desired articulation and payload capabilities. Using these soft actuators, modular integrated designs are created for functional tasks that require larger degrees of freedom. This work focuses on the development, modeling, and evaluation of these soft robot prototypes. In the first steps to understand whether humans have the capability of collaborating with a wearable Soft Poly-Limb, multiple versions of the Soft Poly-Limb are developed for assisting daily living tasks. The system is evaluated not only for performance, but also for safety, customizability, and modularity. Efforts were also made to monitor the position and orientation of the Soft Poly-Limbs components through embedded soft sensors and first steps were taken in developing self-powered compo-nents to bring the system out into the world. This work has pushed the boundaries of developing high powered-to-weight soft manipulators that can interact side-by-side with a human user and builds the foundation upon which researchers can investigate whether the brain can support additional limbs and whether these systems can truly allow users to augment their manipulation capabilities to improve their daily lives. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Systems Engineering 2020

Thesis: M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 1976 / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. At head of title: T-624. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Sergio N. Simunovic S. / M.S. / M.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering

This thesis deals with the evaluation of manufacturing gas valves on the automatic line and the design of CCTV systems to detect errors at assembly in Honeywell Czech Republic Ltd. The aim of this thesis is mutual comparison of the respective proposed options of the camera system, their optimal selection, and the evaluation of detected errors of the line by using Pareto Charts. An integral part of this work is a brief description of the automatic line for gas valves and the history of Honeywell Company.

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Thesis: B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 1981 / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Paul Stephen Ranyak. / B.S. / B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Serial articulated industrial manipulators are increasingly used in machining applications due to their flexibility in application and their cost-effectiveness compared to conventional machinery. However, the use of industrial manipulators in machining processes that subject the robot to high loads such as in drilling is limited. The relatively low mechanical stiffness leads to position offsets from the anticipated position. Efforts have been made in the past to create manipulator calibration methods to compensate for their low stiffness and to increase their pose accuracy. The Department of Production Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology defined a static and quasi-static compliance calibration procedure for industrial manipulators. Contrary to the hypothesis, the two methods produce different results in terms of the measured magnitude of Cartesian deflections. This study compares static and quasi-static compliance measurement procedures on an ABB IRB 6700-300/2.70 and aims at finding causes for the difference in the measured deflection of the manipulator between the two methods. Therefore, a literature review is performed and based on the review a novel quasi-static measurement procedure is presented. Deflections during the application of static and quasi-static loads with a frequency of less than 0.5 Hz on the manipulator are measured and compared. Differences in deflection are seen and potential causes are analyzed in several experiments. Namely, by changing parameters the resulting effects on the manipulator due to kinematic errors and dynamic effects are investigated. The results stress that unlike the expectation based on the theory of mechanics the system shows a dynamic behavior if a periodic loading with a frequency of less than 0.5Hz is applied during the quasi-static experiments. The difference in deflection is thus explained through load dissipation by damping and inertial forces during the quasi-static measurements of the novel method. This does not apply to the quasi-static measurement procedure defined by the Production Engineering department. Moreover, differences in deflection were identified due to friction and backlash acting in the transmissions system of the motors when static loads are applied in certain regions of the task space. Future work in the analysis of differences in compliance measurement procedures is encouraged to find causes for the quasi-static measurement results of the department. / Serieartikulerade industriella manipulatorer används allt mer i bearbetande operationer tack vare dess flexibilitet i användande och dess kostnadseffektivitet jämfört med konventionella maskiner. Dock är användandet av industriella manipulatorer i bearbetningsprocesser som utsätter roboten för höga laster så som borrande begränsat. Den relativt höga mekaniska stelheten leder till positionsförskjutningar från den förväntade positionen. Ansträngningar har tidigare gjorts för att skapa kalibreringsmetoder för manipulatorer som ska kompensera för dess låga stelhet och öka dess position och orienterings-exakthet. Institutionen för industriell produktion vid Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan har definerat en statisk och kvasistatisk efterlevnads-kalibrerings-procedur för industriella manipulatorer. I motsats till hypotesen producerade de två metoderna olika resultat i avseende till den uppmätta magnituden för Kartesiska böjningar. Denna studie jämför statiska och kvasistatiska efterlevnads-mätnings-procedurer hos en ABB IRB 6700-300/2.70 och siktar på att hitta orsaker för skillnaden i den uppmätta böjningen av manipulatorn mellan de två metoderna. Därmed genomförs en litteraturstudie och baserat på en översikt presenteras en ny kvasistatisk mätningsprocedur. Böjningar under påverkan av statiska och kvasistatiska laster på under 0.5 Hz på manipulatorn uppmäts och jämförs. Skillnader i böjningar kan ses och potentiella orsaker analyseras i flera experiment. Genom byte av parametrar kan effekter på den industriella manipulatorn som orsakas av kinematiska fel och dynamiska effekter undersökas. Resultatet understryker att olikt förväntningarna som baserats på teorier från mekaniken uppvisar systemet ett dymaniskt beteende om en periodisk last på mindre än 0.5 Hz appliceras under de kvasistatiska experimenten. Skillnaden i böjningen förklaras därmed genom ett lastminskande som beror på dämpande och tröga krafter under de kvasistatiska mätningarna av den nya metoden. Detta gäller inte den kvasistatiska mätningsproceduren som definerats av Institutionen för industriell produktion. Utöver detta identifieras skillnader i böjningar med avseende på friktion och glapp i överföringssystemet i motorerna när statiska laster appliceras på specifika regioner i arbetsområdet. Framtida arbete i analys av skillnader i efterlevnadsmätnings-procedurerna uppmuntras för att hitta orsaker till institutionens kvasistatiska mätningsresultat.

Isostatic frameworks are statically determinate trusses that are self contained (Le. they exist independent of support or foundation). Isostatic frameworks have been widely used as supporting structures, and recently they have been used as the structure for parallel manipulators. These truss-based manipulators could potentially solve the problems facing conventional manipulators and could make the design of high-degree-of-freedom manipulators feasible. The rigorous scientific study of isostatic frameworks and manipulators based on their structure has been limited. Recent developments in the design of large space structures and truss-based manipulators, however, demand rigorous design and mathematical tools. This dissertation provides a general theory for the design of structures based on frameworks and methods to analyze the kinematics of truss-based manipulators. The objective of the first part of this dissertation is to solve the problems of identification, generation and classification of isostatic frameworks in greater depth than in any past work in this area. Original methods are discussed for the enumeration and generation of isostatic frameworks. The first part also presents an original method to determine the geometry of general frameworks and an improved method to find the forces in their members. The determination of geometry and forces are critical areas in structural design. The second part of this dissertation presents a case study on one of the candidates for manipulator applications, the double-octahedral manipulator. The kinematic analyses of the double-octahedral manipulator includes methods to perform forward and inverse kinematic analysis, velocity and acceleration analysis, singularity analysis and workspace analysis. The closed-form solution to the inverse analysis presented herein is a major breakthrough in the development of the double-octahedral manipulator. Other analysis, such as velocity and acceleration, singularity, and workspace, depend on the inverse solution. It is believed that these solutions will help narrow the gap between theory and application of truss-based manipulators. The determination of singularities and works paces are application of recent ideas of other researchers. However, original implementations of these ideas have yielded astonishing results. The Jacobian and Hessian matrix presented in this dissertation should help in developing the control scheme for this device. C-Ianguage program codes for several of the methods are also provided. The methods have been tested based on the results obtained from these programs. The position analysis algorithms have also been tested on real hardware. Some of the methods developed here have been successfully employed for simulated and experimental vibration control studies. / Ph. D.

Control systems for robotic manipulators have been investigated for several years. The difficulty in designing a controller for a robotic manipulator is due to the highly nonlinear, time-varying dynamics. Closed-loop constant gain controllers are effective when the robot is expected to perform a limited range of operations. In the case of a mobile robot, the commanded tasks are not likely to be repetitive. Thus, another method of control is desired to overcome the effects of the nonlinear time-varying dynamics. Several adaptive control methods have been applied to robotic manipulators. The adaptive controllers are successful at trajectory tracking in the presence of the nonlinear time-varying dynamics. Some of these methods are computationally demanding, therefore, most of the current research focuses on efficient adaptive control methods. In particular, the area of decentralized adaptive control is gaining popularity. This method involves reducing a dynamic system into subsystems, each with an individual controller. This method is more efficient since the controllers can operate simultaneously. In this study, a decentralized model reference adaptive controller (MRAC) was designed for a four-degree-of-freedom mobile robot. The performance of the decentralized MRAC controller was compared to that of a constant gain state feedback controller. The decentralized MRAC control strategy proved to be an efficient method of control for a mobile robot that is superior to state feedback control when the robot is performing highly nonlinear time-varying tasks. Also, the computational load for each subsystem of the decentralized controller was less than the computational load of the state feedback controller. / Master of Science

Adaptive controllers allow robots to perform a wide variety of tasks, but the extensive computations required have generated an interest in developing decentralized adaptive controllers. Horner has designed an adaptive controller for a four-degree-of-freedom mobile robot and tested it through simulations. The study described in this thesis uses the techniques described by Horner to design and test a decentralized model reference adaptive controller (DMRAC) for a physical four-degree-of-freedom mobile robot. The study revealed several difficulties in implementing this design. Most notably, the robot available for the research did not allow for the measurement of joint velocity, so it was necessary to estimate the velocity as the derivative of the position measurement. The noise created by this estimation made completion of testing impossible. Future research should be performed on a robot that provides joint velocity measurement. Alternatively, a study could include state estimation as part of the controller, thus reducing and possibly eliminating the need for velocity measurement. / Master of Science