Publications associées à A new concept of modular kinematics to design ultra-high precision flexure-based robots

Spatial Modeling for Building Design Evaluation: from Visual Landscape Quality Assessment to Devaluation Risk Estimation

Zoning reform is a crucial tool for cities to adapt to contemporary challenges. However, its implementation remains challenging. Property owners, with a vested interest in the value of their neighborhoods, are sensitive to local developments and the potent ...

EPFL2024

Leibniz en Créateur. Un regard matériel sur sa machine à calculer

Simon François Dumas Primbault

Between 1671 and 1716, the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz attempted to design a reckoning machine. Working closely with the Parisian clockmaker Monsieur Ollivier, Leibniz eventually failed at producing a working prototype. After the redisco ...

2022

Flexure Variable Stiffness Actuators

Jamie Paik, Frédéric Henri Vaskin Giraud, Mustafa Mete

Series elastic actuators (SEAs) and variable elastic actuators (VSAs) provide shock resistance, energy storage, and stable force control. However, they usually require extra springs, mechanical parts, and transmissions, increasing size, weight, number of m ...

2022

Active origami platforms for human-robot interactions

Frédéric Henri Vaskin Giraud

Robots are employed to assist humans in lengthy, challenging, and repetitive tasks. However, the fields of rehabilitation, haptics, and assistive robotics have shown a significant need to support and interact with people in their everyday life. To facilita ...

EPFL2022

Development of soft microscopic implants and acoustically-powered machines for biomedical applications

Murat Kaynak

The development of miniaturized machines that can actively cross barriers, navigate through heterogeneous materials and access remote sites can revolutionize environmental inspection and targeted therapy. Seminal work demonstrated the feasibility of follow ...

EPFL2021

Designing compliant mechanisms composed of shape memory alloy and actuated by induction heating

Paolo Germano, Yves Perriard, Sean Thomas, Adrien Jean-Michel Thabuis, Thomas Guillaume Martinez

Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) are a type of smart materials that reacts mechanically to heat. Due to their complex behavior, they are often used in a simple geometry such as wires. This constrains the output displacement of the alloy to a simple linear contra ...

2021

Design of the First HTS Single-Coil Demonstrator of GaToroid Toroidal Gantry for Hadron Therapy

Bertrand Dutoit, Bertrand Dutoit, Luca Bottura, Enrico Felcini, Jérôme Harray

The design and construction of compact and lightweight gantries for hadron therapy are essential steps toward wider accessibility to this cancer treatment. The use of a high-field steady-state toroidal gantry, i.e., GaToroid, represents an attractive alter ...

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2021

Soft pneumatic actuator-driven origami-inspired modular robotic ‘‘pneumagami’’

Jamie Paik, Özdemir Can Kara, Matthew Aaron Robertson

This article presents a new modular robotic platform for enabling reconfigurable, actively controlled, high-degree-of-freedom (high-DoF) systems with compact form factor. The robotic modules exploit the advantages of origami-inspired construction methods a ...

2021

The ratio of shear to elastic modulus of in-plane loaded masonry

Katrin Beyer, Bastian Valentin Wilding, Michele Godio

When designing unreinforced masonry buildings, the wall stiffness and, consequently, the masonry elastic and shear modulus E and G are essential parameters. Current codes provide empirical estimates of the masonry elastic modulus and a ratio between the sh ...

2020

Out-of-plane instability of thin reinforced concrete walls under seismic loading

Angelica Rosso

Out of plane instability of reinforced concrete walls is a failure mechanism observed rather recently following the earthquakes in Chile (2010) and New Zealand (2011). Global out of plane instability is a phenomenon that may occur in thin walls, subjected ...

EPFL2018

A New Kinematic Model and Control Strategy for a Mobile Platform for Transporting Lightweight Manipulators

Andres San Millan Rodriguez

This work is concerned with the mechanical design and the description of the different components of a new mobile base for a lightweight mobile manipulator. These kinds of mobile manipulators are normally composed of multiple lightweight links mounted on a ...

MDPI2018

Micro-mechanical finite element modeling for in-plane behavior of historical masonry

Shenghan Zhang

Seismic assessment of unreinforced masonry structures remains a challenge. This dissertation investigates the in-plane behavior of historical masonry elements and proposes an advanced simulation method based on the cohesive zone model (CZM) in a finite ele ...

EPFL2018

Hydraulic performance evaluation of a micro-turbine with counter rotating runners by experimental investigation and numerical simulation

François Avellan, Cécile Münch-Alligné, Elena Vagnoni, Loïc Andolfatto

The development of energy recovery systems on existing water utility networks is a new challenge for increasing the sustainability of electricity generation mix. The concept of the new micro-turbine with counter rotating runners braces this goal by allowin ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2018

Programmable Multistable Mechanisms: Design, modeling, characterization and applications

Mohamed Gamal Abdelrahman Ahmed Zanaty

Multistable Mechanisms are mechanical devices having more than one stable state. Since these mechanisms can maintain different deformations with zero force, they are advantageous for low power environments such as wristwatches and medical devices. In this ...

EPFL2018

Modular and reconfigurable desktop microfactory for high precision manufacturing

Zhenishbek Zhakypov

Sub-millimeter scale devices are developing rapidly taking smaller, smarter, and more precise forms. This is achieved thanks to advancements in micro-manufacturing tools and techniques. For micro-production, a miniaturization of the machinery is a prominen ...

Springer London Ltd2017

The Design of A New Rotary Hexapod with A Single Active Degree of Freedom

Jamie Paik, Alexey Fomin

This study provides a novel approach for designing a rotary hexapod with a single actuator and definable motion of a platform. Hexapod is a parallel structure mechanism with six legs and six degrees of freedom (DoF) of an end-effector. It is not an underac ...

2017

Higher-order continuation method for the rigid-body kinematic design of compliant mechanisms

Simon Nessim Henein, Lennart Rubbert

Compliant mechanisms are of great interest in precision engineering. In this paper we propose a higher order continuation method to help their rigid-body kinematic design. The method helps to investigate the choice of a mechanism configuration through the ...

2017

Design and Computational Modeling of a Modular, Compliant Robotic Assembly for Human Lumbar Unit and Spinal Cord Assistance

Jamie Paik, Harshal Arun Sonar, Gunjan Agarwal, Matthew Aaron Robertson

Wearable soft robotic systems are enabling safer human-robot interaction and are proving to be instrumental for biomedical rehabilitation. In this manuscript, we propose a novel, modular, wearable robotic device for human (lumbar) spine assistance that is ...

Nature Research2017

Effect of static and kinematic boundary conditions on the out-of-plane response of brick masonry walls

Katrin Beyer, Filippo Lucca

The Unreinforced Wall (URM) elements that are most susceptible to out-of-plane failure are wall elements of the upper storeys where the accelerations are largest. In modern URM buildings with reinforced concrete slabs, the out-of-plane mechanism involves t ...

Taylor and Francis Group2016

Étude des engrenages de microtechnique

Quentin Theurillat-Bonjour

The research presented in this thesis addresses the design of gear drives for micro engineering applications, and was performed in collaboration with a watch manufacturer. Gears have long been found in many fields of mechanical engineering. Their use in wa ...

EPFL2016