• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.964-969
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• 2012

Robot hands capable of grasping or handling various objects are important for service robots to effectively aid humans. In particular, controlling a contact force and providing a compliant motion are essential when the hand is in contact with objects. Many dexterous robot hands equipped with force/torque sensors have been developed to perform force control, but they suffer from the complexity of control and high cost. In this paper, a low-cost robot hand based on SEA (Series Elastic Actuator), which is composed of compression spring, stretch sensor, and wire, is proposed. The grasping force can be estimated by measuring the compression length of spring, which would allow the hand to perform force control. A series of experimentations are carried out to verify the performance of force control of the proposed robot hand, and it is shown that it can successfully control the contact force without any additional force/torque sensors.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.139-146
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• 2020

In this paper, the slope of the footplate is adjusted to compensate for the centrifugal force with a series elastic actuator (SEA) attached to the Segway's body to improve the cornering characteristics during turning. To ensure Segway's driving safety in the curvature motion, it is necessary to compensate for the centripetal force by tilting the footplate to generate inward force from gravity. When the footplate is tilted under the control of SEA, the vertical load on both wheels has been changed accordingly. The frictional force of the wheel has been changed by the change of the vertical force, which requires adjustment of driving torque to keep the curvature trajectory. That is, the driving torque has been controlled to keep the curvature trajectory considering the frictional force caused by the turning motion. Four SEAs are attached to the footplate to control the slope of the footplate and the real curvature motion has been demonstrated to verify the effects of SEAs in the high- speed curvature motion.