Six-Bar Linkages with Compliant Mechanisms for an Adaptive Robot

Abstract Programmable structures are formed by autonomous and adaptive triangular cells. However, they are composed of a large number of parts, specifically bearings, which make them laborious to manufacture and expensive. An essential part of these programmable structures are six-bar linkages, which allow to build cells that can preserve the underlying geometry of a triangular mesh. A major improvement, which is the main part of this paper, is to replace the joints of the six-bar-linkage by a compliant mechanism, which allows to manufacture them as one 3D printable part. A multibody system formulation is setup with the model of the compliant mechanisms, treating every joint either ideal or compliant with the given stiffness parameters. The multi-body formulation furthermore allows to include friction as well as an actuator model in a straight-forward manner. The overall stiffness parameter of the real system is then identified from a comparison with an experimental setup of a real compliant triangular cell. Finally, the model is used to show the deviations of a medium-scaled programmable structure with respect to the idealized behavior. The present paper marks a relevant step towards the realization of larger programmable structures as well as the development of 3D programmable structures.