Design and fabrication of a three-dimensional meso-sized robotic metamaterial with actively controlled properties

Luo, Chenyang; Song, Yuanping; Zhao, Chang; Thirumalai, Sridharan; Ladner, Ian S.; Cullinan, Michael; Hopkins, Jonathan B.

doi:10.1039/c9mh01368g

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Aiming at solving these problems, we explore the design idea from compliant mechanism, [ 10 ] which realizes its function by harnessing deformation of flexible elastic elements. More recently, of particular interest in this research field is designing compliant metamaterials to achieve programmable features of shape reconfiguration, [ 11–14 ] mechanical stiffness, [ 15–20 ] information encryption, [ 21–24 ] energy absorbing, [ 25–28 ] wave guiding, [ 29–32 ] bandgap, [ 33–35 ] solitons, [ 36 ] etc., motivating possible way for novel QZS isolator. Here, we suggest and realize a class of tailored mechanical metamaterials containing many optimally designed curved beams; these beams are tailored in shape to achieve prescribed QZS characteristics, enabling the whole mechanical metamaterial to achieve programmable QZS features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tailored Mechanical Metamaterials with Programmable Quasi‐Zero‐Stiffness Features for Full‐Band Vibration Isolation

Zhang

Guo

2021

Adv Funct Materials

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Quasi‐zero‐stiffness (QZS) isolators of high‐static‐low‐dynamic stiffness play an important role in ultra‐low frequency vibration mitigation. While the current designs of QZS mainly exploit the combination of negative‐stiffness corrector and positive‐stiffness element, and only have a single QZS working range, here a class of tailored mechanical metamaterials with programmable QZS features is proposed. These programmed structures contain curved beams with geometries that are specifically designed to enable the prescribed QZS characteristics. When these metamaterials are compressed, the curved beams reach the prescribed QZS working range in sequence, thus enabling tailored stair‐stepping force‐displacement curves with multiple QZS working ranges. Compression tests demonstrate that a vast design space is achieved to program the QZS features of the metamaterials. Further vibration tests confirm the ultra‐low frequency vibration isolation capability of the proposed mechanical metamaterials. The mechanism of QZS stems solely from the structural geometry of the curved beams and is therefore materials‐independent. This design strategy opens a new avenue for innovating compact and scalable QZS isolators with multiple working ranges.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tailored Mechanical Metamaterials with Programmable Quasi‐Zero‐Stiffness Features for Full‐Band Vibration Isolation

Zhang

Guo

2021

Adv Funct Materials

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“…Mechanical systems can also use actuators and sensors to achieve stiffness tunability via closed-loop mechatronic control. 21,22 The stiffness of a beam can also be changed by effectively shortening its length by pinching or pressing against it. 7,23,24 Stiffness-tuning approaches that rely predominantly on deformation, however, are favorable for tuning the stiffness of compliant mechanisms 25 since such approaches do not compromise the benefits inherent to such mechanisms (i.e., high precision, friction free, no backlash, minimal-to-no assembly required, easy to fabricate, lightweight, and low cost).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compliant mechanisms that achieve binary stiffness along multiple degrees of freedom

Shimohara

Lee

Hopkins

2022

Journal of Composite Materials

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Here we introduce compliant mechanisms that can be triggered using bistable switches to achieve two different states of stiffness (i.e., high and low stiffness) along multiple degrees of freedom The compliant mechanisms leverage principles of constraint manipulation and stiffness cancelation to achieve these binary states with a stiffness difference as large as an order of magnitude. Although these principles have been used in prior works to achieve binary stiffness in compliant mechanisms that achieve a single degree of freedom (DOF) (e.g., a single translation or a single rotation), this work advances the theory to achieve binary stiffness in compliant mechanisms that achieve multiple DOFs. Specifically, two designs are introduced, fabricated, and tested to demonstrate binary stiffness in two DOFs. The first design achieves binary stiffness along two orthogonal translational DOFs and the second design achieves binary stiffness about two orthogonal rotational DOFs with intersecting axes.

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“…By providing local energy minima in the structural configuration space, such bistable elements allow metamaterials to carry mechanical loads, locally store elastic energy in the structure and/or generate multiple stable reconfigurable geometries. [ 16,17 ] These functionalities have been harnessed to design deployable structures, [ 18,19 ] impact absorbers, [ 20‐22 ] robotic actuators, [ 23,24 ] energy harvesting, [ 25,26 ] and micromechanical systems, [ 27,28 ] waveguiding systems, [ 29‐31 ] memory [ 32,33 ] and logic devices, [ 34‐37 ] and morphing elements in architecture. In particular, multistability in metamaterials allows for programming both static and dynamic properties, such as stiffness adaptation, [ 6,38 ] tunable bandgaps, [ 39,40 ] and quantum valley Hall effect.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dome‐Patterned Metamaterial Sheets

et al. 2020

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The properties of conventional materials result from the arrangement of and the interaction between atoms at the nanoscale. Metamaterials have shifted this paradigm by offering property control through structural design at the mesoscale, thus broadening the design space beyond the limits of traditional materials. A family of mechanical metamaterials consisting of soft sheets featuring a patterned array of reconfigurable bistable domes is reported here. The domes in this metamaterial architecture can be reversibly inverted at the local scale to generate programmable multistable shapes and tunable mechanical responses at the global scale. By 3D printing a robotic gripper with energy-storing skin and a structure that can memorize and compute spatially-distributed mechanical signals, it is shown that these metamaterials are an attractive platform for novel mechanologic concepts and open new design opportunities for structures used in robotics, architecture, and biomedical applications.

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Design and fabrication of a three-dimensional meso-sized robotic metamaterial with actively controlled properties

Abstract: We introduce and fabricate a metamaterial that consists of 5 mm-sized 3D cells that each possess actuators, sensors, and circuitry to enable desired mechanical properties that emerge from closed-loop swarm control according to uploaded instructions.

Cited by 16 publications

References 25 publications

Tailored Mechanical Metamaterials with Programmable Quasi‐Zero‐Stiffness Features for Full‐Band Vibration Isolation

Tailored Mechanical Metamaterials with Programmable Quasi‐Zero‐Stiffness Features for Full‐Band Vibration Isolation

Compliant mechanisms that achieve binary stiffness along multiple degrees of freedom

Dome‐Patterned Metamaterial Sheets

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