MACCEPA, the mechanically adjustable compliance and controllable equilibrium position actuator: Design and implementation in a biped robot

Transferring impedance control strategies between heterogeneous systems via apprenticeship learning

“…For example, if the term e l( e x, e u, t) of a human demonstrator represents the energy consumption of the muscles, one might define l l( l x, l u, t) as the power consumed by the motors of a robotic manipulator. The goal of imitation then, is to find the optimal behaviour for the learner { lx , lū } under the dynamics l f (·) with respect to the equivalent objective function (4).…”

“…In our first experiment, we investigate behaviour transfer from a 1-link system with an antagonistic VIA to another, similar system with simpler MACCEPA-like actuation [4]. The purpose of this experiment is to evaluate our approach on a relatively small system where the ground truth is known, before scaling up to more complex problems.…”

“…We then investigated the transfer of this behaviour to a second, similar plant, but a different actuation. For this, we selected an actuator where the stiffness and equilibrium position can be directly controlled, similar to the MACCEPA joint [4] (see Fig. 3).…”

“…In recent years, variable impedance actuation has become increasingly popular in the design and control of novel robotic mechanisms [10], [4]. Variable impedance actuators (VIAs) (Fig.…”

The Huggable Robot Probo, a Multi-disciplinary Research Platform

“…Compliant actuators are gaining interest in the robotic community. Pneumatic artificial muscles [11](such as McKibben muscles, Festo muscles, PPAM [12]), electric compliant actuators (such as VIA [13], AMASC [14] and MACCEPA [15]) and voice coil actuators [16] are some examples of compliant actuators. While some of them exhibit adaptable compliance, so that the stiffness of the actuated joint can be changed, it is not required in the Probo robot.…”