HIT News (School of Mechatronics Engineering text/image) Recently, the first stage of the 2021 World Robot Contest - Tri-Co Robot Challenge, sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, was held online. Twenty-six teams from HIT, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Beihang University, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other universities and research institutes entered into a fierce competition. After a series of fierce competitions, HIT Professor Liu Yingxiang’s team, which consists of Dr. Zhou Dong, Dr. Tang Xintian, and Dr. Sun Jin, all from School of Mechatronics Engineering, won the championship with their works Research and Application of High-performance, Self-sensing, and Flexible Fiber Artificial Muscle. Dr. Zhou made an oath at the opening ceremony on behalf of his teammates.
The HIT team has produced a high-output, large-deformation artificial muscle with self-sensing capability, weighing only 0.1g and carrying a maximum load of 1.5kg for controlled deformation. The good embeddability and controllability of this type of artificial muscle shows its unlimited potential for flexible drive applications. The work shows the fabrication process based on the artificial muscle drive module. Compared with other types of flexible actuators, the high-precision self-sensing control characteristics of this type of artificial muscle allow it to trace patterns according to predetermined light trajectories.
The Tri-Co Robot Contest is the major event for the “Coexisting-Cooperative-Cognitive Robot Basic Theory and Key Technology Research”, which focuses on the basic theory and design methods of human-machine-environment tri-co robotics. The aim of the contest is to cultivate outstanding scientific and technological achievements through the intersection of mechanics, information, mechanics and medicine, to cultivate a number of young and middle-aged academic backbones and leaders with international influence, and to enhance the overall innovation ability and international influence of China’s robotics research. A total of 47 teams from all over China participated in the competition, and 26 groups entered the final round after the online preliminary examination.
A. Artificial muscle; B. Soft module; C. Structural composition of soft modules; D. Light trajectory experiment; E. Light trajectory drawn using self-sensing artificial muscle-driven soft modules; F. Crawling robots driven by the single soft module; G. Paw driven by two soft modules; H. Bipedal robot driven by six soft modules
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