DESIGN OF A HIGH-PERFORMANCE MINIATURE (KNUCKLE-SIZED) JOINT DRIVE FOR EXOSKELETON HAND TELEOPERATORS

THE PROPOSED PROJECT IS TO EXTEND TO TELEOPERATOR EXOSKELETON MASTERS NEWLY INVENTED JOINT-DRIVE TRANSMISSION TECHNOLOGY, RECENTLY PATENTED BY MIT SPECIFICALLY FOR USE WITH HIGH-PERFORMANCE ROBOTS AND TELEOPERATORS. COMBINED WITH NEW FIBER MATERIALS, THESE CABLED TRANSMISSIONS/SPEED-REDUCERS ARE KEY TO IMPLEMENTING INHERENTLY STABLE BILATERAL FORCE CONTROL WHILE ENHANCING BOTH DYNAMIC RANGE AND BANDWIDTH OF FORCE CONTROL. MINIATURIZATION OF THESE DEVICES IS NEEDED TO IMPLEMENT THEM IN THE SMALLER JOINTS OF ROBOTIC HANDS AND EXOSKELETON HAND MASTERS. THE PROPOSED EFFORT IS TO DEVELOP A BASELINE BASED ON DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR MINIATURIZATION. THE CONCEPTS WILL BE EVALUATED THROUGH SIMPLE EXPERIMENTS, ANALYSIS, AND DISCUSSIONS WITH OTHER EXPERTS IN THE FIELD. THE MOST PROMISING CONCEPT WILL BE SELECTED FOR MORE EXTENSIVE EXPERIMENTS IN PHASE II. PHASE II WILL RESULT IN A PROTOTYPE ON-DEGREE-OFFREEDOM MASTER-TO-SLAVE TELEOPERATOR SYSTEM IMPLEMENTED IN FULL BILATERAL FORCE CONTROL.