Related papers: Controllable Mechanical-domain Energy Accumulators
As wearable electronics become increasingly prevalent, there is a rise in interest and demand for sustainably designed systems that are also energy self-sufficient. The research described in this paper investigated a shoe-worn energy…
A general expression for the elastic potential energy of a helical spring is derived using the basic concepts of elasticity theory and geometry. Both the translational and the rotational displacement of the spring's moving ends are…
Elastic actuation taps into elastic elements' energy storage for dynamic motions beyond rigid actuation. While Series Elastic Actuators (SEA) and Variable Stiffness Actuators (VSA) are highly sophisticated, they do not fully provide control…
Lattice-like cellular materials, with their unique combination of lightweight, high strength, and good deformability, are promising for engineering applications. This paper investigates the energy-absorbing properties of four truss-lattice…
With their unique combination of characteristics - an energy density almost 100 times that of human muscle, and a power density of 5.3 kW/kg, similar to a jet engine's output - Nylon artificial muscles stand out as particularly apt for…
An impedance-based control scheme is introduced for cooperative manipulators grasping a rigid load. The position and orientation of the load are to be maintained close to a desired trajectory, trading off tracking accuracy by low energy…
Soft machines typically exhibit slow locomotion speed and low manipulation strength because of intrinsic limitations of soft materials. Here, we present a generic design principle that harnesses mechanical instability for a variety of…
This paper presents a novel modular, reconfigurable battery energy storage system. The proposed design is characterized by a tight integration of reconfigurable power switches and DC/DC converters. This characteristic enables isolation of…
This paper presents a closed-loop controller for wind farms to provide active power control services using a high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics based wind plant simulator. The proposed design enhances power tracking stability and…
Non-volatile magnetic storage, from 1940s magnetic core to present day racetrack memory and magnetic anisotropy switching devices rely on the metastability of magnetic domains to store information. However, the inherent inefficiency of…
Interactions between active individuals in animal collectives lead to emergent responses that remain elusive in synthetic soft matter. Here, shape-morphing polymers are used to create bio-inspired transient solids that self-assemble with…
Compared to rigid actuators, Series Elastic Actuators (SEAs) offer a potential reduction of motor energy consumption and peak power, though these benefits are highly dependent on the design of the torque-elongation profile of the elastic…
This paper proposes a Clustered Unit Commitment (CUC) formulation to accurately model flexibility requirements such as ramping, reserve, and startup/shutdown constraints. The CUC is commonly applied in large and long-term planning models to…
Previous design methodologies for spring-driven jumping robots focused on jump height optimization for specific tasks. In doing so, numerous designs have been proposed including using nonlinear spring-linkages to increase the elastic energy…
We study a simple micro-mechanical device that does not lose its snap-through behavior in an environment dominated by fluctuations. The main idea is to have several degrees of freedom that can cooperatively resist the de-synchronizing…
Spring-based actuators in legged locomotion provide energy-efficiency and improved performance, but increase the difficulty of controller design. While previous work has focused on extensive modeling and simulation to find optimal…
Energy efficiency is critical to the success of legged robotics. Efficiency is lost through wasted energy during locomotion and standing. Including elastic elements has been shown to reduce movement costs, while including breaks can reduce…
Developing low-weight, frugal and sustainable power sources for resource-limited settings appears to be a challenging proposition for the advancement of next-generation sensing devices and beyond. Here, we report the use of centimeter-sized…
Electric power grids regularly experience uncertain fluctuations from load demands and renewables, which poses a risk of violating operational limits designed to safeguard the system. In this paper, we consider the robust AC OPF problem…
Nanomagnetic logic, in which the outcome of a computation is embedded into the energy hierarchy of magnetostatically coupled nanomagnets, offers an attractive pathway to implement in-memory computation. This computational paradigm avoids…