A Novel Cooling Design for an Agonistic–Antagonistic SMA Tendon-Driven Actuator
- Resource Type
- article
- Authors
- Renke Liu; Shuyao Zhang; Yusuke Baba; Hideyuki Sawada
- Source
- Actuators, Vol 12, Iss 11, p 415 (2023)
- Subject
- biomimetic robotics
tendon actuator
shape memory alloys
Materials of engineering and construction. Mechanics of materials
TA401-492
Production of electric energy or power. Powerplants. Central stations
TK1001-1841
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2076-0825
Shape memory alloys (SMAs) exhibit a unique property that undergoes deformation in response to temperature variation. This characteristic can be utilized via the application of a filiform SMA wire to tendon-driven robotic actuators for biomimetic joint movements. However, due to the inefficiencies in heat dissipation, conventional SMA tendon-driven actuators are characterized by their lower relaxation speeds than other actuators. This paper proposes a novel cooling design for an SMA tendon-driven actuator using thin-fin heat sinks based on a multi-layer wrapped SMA tendon design. In addition, the electric circuit and the controller are refined. Prototype devices are constructed to validate the performance of SMA-based actuators under PID control. The results indicate that the proposed design exceeds previous models in terms of relaxation performance by up to 5.8 times while also being able to stabilize at a target angle within 0.5 s under control.