| Research Abstract |
A study of the functional manipulator with a newly developed actuator, which has not ordinary hydrauric driven mechanisms nor electric motors but has bio-mimicked structures and functions of the living skeletal muscle, was performed.
As a material, Shape Memory Alloy (SMA), which is capable of direct energy conversion from heat to mechanical power and has flexibility with silent sounds, was utilized. AS a structure, an artificial sarcomere, which is the same as the minimum unit of the living skeletal muscle, was connencted in parallel and in serious into an artificial muscle. Instead of using coil spring to get reshaping power. antagonistic structure was featured. Furthermore, we planned to make a manipulator (arm and hand prosthesis) which has same human structures and functions not as an "ordinary way of robots" but the way of introducing the arificial muscle to the human skeleton (bone and joint).
It the first year, the artificial muscle with the antagonistic structure and of the SMA artificial sarcomere was designed and fabricated.
In this (the last) year, the manipulator design method of dynamic analysis was developed. This design method, that is, was established by dynamic simulation introduced by the characteristic equation of the artificial muscle, of which is the same as the living skeletal muscle, and had an easily changeable property by the aim of use.
By means of this design method, computer simulations of the model of bone and joint with the artificial muscle, which were introduced by the anatomical characteristics of the human arm, were done. Therefore, evaluation of unstability caused by a variety of load performed with ease by adjusting the muscle ankering point.
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