Cours d'economie politique

The static properties of tensegrity structures have been widely appreciated in civil engineering as the basis of extremely lightweight yet strong mechanical structures. However, the dynamic properties and their potential utility in the design of robots have been relatively unexplored. This paper introduces robots based on tensegrity structures, which demonstrate that the dynamics of such structures can be utilized for locomotion. Two tensegrity robots are presented: TR3, based on a triangular tensegrity prism with three struts, and TR4, based on a quadrilateral tensegrity prism with four struts. For each of these robots, simulation models are designed, and automatic design of controllers for forward locomotion are performed in simulation using evolutionary algorithms. The evolved controllers are shown to be able to produce static and dynamic gaits in both robots. A real-world tensegrity robot is then developed based on one of the simulation models as a proof of concept. The results demonstrate that tensegrity structures can provide the basis for lightweight, strong, and fault-tolerant robots with a potential for a variety of locomotor gaits

Design and control of tensegrity robots for locomotion

Review: A review of active structural control: challenges for engineering informatics

Generation of energy-efficient architecture solutions applying GENE_ARCH: An evolution-based generative design system

For any given animal, the sources of mechanical disturbances inducing tissue deformation define environment from the perspective of the animal's haptic perceptual system. The system's achievements include perceiving the body, attachments to the body, and the surfaces and substances adjacent to the body. Among the perceptual systems, it stands alone in having no defined medium. There is no articulated functional equivalent to air and water, the media that make possible the energy transmissions and diffusions underpinning the other perceptual systems. To identify the haptic system's medium the authors focus on connective tissue and the conjunction of muscular, connective tissue net, and skeletal (MCS) as the body's proper characterization. The challenge is a biophysical formulation of MCS as a continuum that, similar to air and water, is homogeneous and isotropic. The authors hypothesized a multifractal tensegrity (MFT) with the shape and stability of the constituents of each scale, from individual...

The medium of haptic perception: a tensegrity hypothesis.

A tensegrity is a lightweight space structure consisting of compression members surrounded by a network of tension members. They can be easily dismantled and therefore provide innovative possibilities for reusable and modular structures. Tensegrities can adapt their shape by changing their self stress, and when equipped with sensors and actuators, they can adapt to changing environments. A full-scale prototype of an adjustable tensegrity has been built and tested at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). This paper begins with a description of important aspects of the design, assembly, and static testing. Tests show that the structure behaves linearly when subjected to vertical loads applied to a single joint. Nonlinearities are detected for small displacements, for loads applied to several joints and for adjusting combinations of telescoping compression members. To predict behavior, dynamic relaxation - a nonlinear method - has been found to be reliable. Appropriate strut adjustments found by a stochastic search algorithm are identified for the control goal of constant roof slope and for the load conditions studied. When adjusting struts, an excessive number of adjustable members does not necessarily lead to improved performance.

Adjustable Tensegrity Structures

Tensegrity structures are composed of cables and struts that become stable through self stress. They are good candidates for implementation of active structural control because their flexibility may mean that they cannot meet serviceability criteria. Changes to the self stress influence the form of the structure. A reliable closed-form solution for obtaining control commands for telescopic compression elements in order to obtain a required shape does not exist for such a closely coupled and geometrically nonlinear structure. Simulating the structural behavior after all possible control commands and testing against constraints and the objective function requires computational times that grow exponentially with the number of actuators. This paper demonstrates that search time can be reduced through use of stochastic search methods and that incrementally storing successfully applied control commands in a case-based reasoning system increases performance during service lives (learning). Such results demonstrate that enhancing control with advanced computing methods provides opportunities for innovative structures.

/pdf/an-active-structure-that-learns-22m15cswq8.pdf

An active structure that learns

Many engineering tasks involve the search for good solutions among many possibilities. In most cases, tasks are too complex to be modeled completely and their solution spaces often contain local minima. Therefore, classical optimization techniques cannot, in general, be applied effectively. This paper studies two stochastic search methods, one well-established (simulated annealing) and one recently developed (probabilistic global search Lausanne), applied to structural shape control. Search results are applied to control the quasistatic displacement of a tensegrity structure with multiple objectives and interdependent actuator effects. The best method depends on the accuracy related to requirements defined by the objective function and the maximum number of evaluations that are allowed.

/pdf/a-study-of-two-stochastic-search-methods-for-structural-54lzac7pf7.pdf

A study of two stochastic search methods for structural control

Incremental development of CBR strategies for computing project cost probabilities

Advanced computing strategies for engineering

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Bernd Domer

Author Tools

Chat about Author