• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.439-440
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• 2006

This research proposes a novel method of shape display to present 3-dimensional objects. Shape displays allow us to feel the actual volume of the object, unlike conventional 2D visual displays of 3D objects. The proposed method employs a wire frame structure to present 3D objects. The wire frame is composed of small units driven by shape memory alloy(SMA) actuators. The drive unit is analogous to the agonist-antagonist system of animal musculoskeletal systems, where the SMA actuators serve as agonist and antagonist muscles. The force in the SMA actuator is controlled by electrical current. The drive unit is equipped with the locking mechanism so that it can sustain the external force exerted by the user as well as the own weight of the wire frame structure. By controlling the current into the SMA actuator and locking mechanism, we call control the angle of the drive unit. A chain of drive units enables presentation of 2 dimensional objects. 3 dimensional presentations are possible by collecting the chains of drive units.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.295-296
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• 2006

We developed wire frame drive unit based on SMA for the 3D Shape display. Our basic concept is wire frame combination connected with a chain form which can create various shapes and it compared with pin array mechanism which is not able to display mushroom shape. It imitates antagonist mechanism of human musculoskeletal system. we create similar motion using repair-relaxation mechanism and locking mechanism by SMA. Therefore, in this paper, we propose SMA control solution for actuating repair-relaxation mechanism and locking mechanism. In our control system. we use optical sensor and quantitative angle between wire frames for closed loop control. And we supply amplified current for SMA by circuit composed of transistor and apply PWM signal to circuit for efficient control. So, wire frame drive unit enable diversity angle control based on sensor data. And then combination of wire frame drive units will create various objects.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.82-88
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• 2008

This paper proposes a novel method of 2 dimensional shape display. Shape displays allow us to feel tile actual volume of the object, unlike conventional 2D visual displays of 3D objects. The proposed method employs a wireframe structure to present 2D or 3D objects. The wireframe is composed of small units driven by shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators. The drive unit is analogous to the agonist-antagonist system of animal musculoskeletal systems, where the SMA actuators serve as agonist and antagonist muscles. The force in the SMA actuator is controlled by electrical current. The drive unit is equipped with the locking mechanism so that it can sustain the external force exerted by the user as well as the own weight of the wireframe structure. By controlling the current into the SMA actuator and locking mechanism, we can control the angle of the drive unit. A chain of drive units enables presentation of 2 dimensional objects. 3 dimensional presentations are possible by collecting the chains of drive units.