A compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedom
Abstract Compliant mechanisms with reconfigurable degrees of freedom are gaining attention in the development of kinesthetic haptic devices, robotic systems, and mechanical metamaterials. However, available devices exhibit limited programmability and form-customizability, restricting their versatili...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Portfolio
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Nature Communications |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55591-2 |
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| author | Humphrey Yang Dinesh K. Patel Tate Johnson Ke Zhong Gina Olson Carmel Majidi Mohammad F. Islam Teng Zhang Lining Yao |
| author_facet | Humphrey Yang Dinesh K. Patel Tate Johnson Ke Zhong Gina Olson Carmel Majidi Mohammad F. Islam Teng Zhang Lining Yao |
| author_sort | Humphrey Yang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Compliant mechanisms with reconfigurable degrees of freedom are gaining attention in the development of kinesthetic haptic devices, robotic systems, and mechanical metamaterials. However, available devices exhibit limited programmability and form-customizability, restricting their versatility. To address this gap, we propose a metastructure concept featuring reconfigurable motional freedom and tunable stiffness, adaptable to various form factors and applications. These devices incorporate passive flexures and actively stiffness-changing rods to modify kinematic freedom. A rational design pipeline informs the flexures’ topological arrangements, geometric parameters, and control signals based on targeted mobilities, enabling the creation of unitary joints with up to six degrees of freedom. Our demonstrative application examples include a wrist device that has an effective stiffness of 0.370 Nm/deg (unlocked state, 5% displacement) to 2.278 Nm/deg (locked state, 1% displacement) to enable dynamic joint mobility control, a haptic thimble device (2.27-52.815 Nmm−1 at 1% displacement) that mimics the sensation of touching physical materials ranging from soft gel to metal surfaces, and a wearable device composed of multiple joints tailored for the arm and hand to augment haptic experiences or facilitate muscle training. We believe the presented method can help democratize compliant metastructures development and expand their versatility for broader contexts. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-b8d46e6ab37a4fc68d1d744da059e10b |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2041-1723 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nature Communications |
| spelling | doaj-art-b8d46e6ab37a4fc68d1d744da059e10b2025-01-19T12:30:24ZengNature PortfolioNature Communications2041-17232025-01-0116111110.1038/s41467-024-55591-2A compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedomHumphrey Yang0Dinesh K. Patel1Tate Johnson2Ke Zhong3Gina Olson4Carmel Majidi5Mohammad F. Islam6Teng Zhang7Lining Yao8Morphing Matter Lab, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon UniversityMorphing Matter Lab, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon UniversityMorphing Matter Lab, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon UniversityMorphing Matter Lab, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon UniversityMechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of MassachusettsDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon UniversityMaterials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon UniversityDepartment of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse UniversityMorphing Matter Lab, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon UniversityAbstract Compliant mechanisms with reconfigurable degrees of freedom are gaining attention in the development of kinesthetic haptic devices, robotic systems, and mechanical metamaterials. However, available devices exhibit limited programmability and form-customizability, restricting their versatility. To address this gap, we propose a metastructure concept featuring reconfigurable motional freedom and tunable stiffness, adaptable to various form factors and applications. These devices incorporate passive flexures and actively stiffness-changing rods to modify kinematic freedom. A rational design pipeline informs the flexures’ topological arrangements, geometric parameters, and control signals based on targeted mobilities, enabling the creation of unitary joints with up to six degrees of freedom. Our demonstrative application examples include a wrist device that has an effective stiffness of 0.370 Nm/deg (unlocked state, 5% displacement) to 2.278 Nm/deg (locked state, 1% displacement) to enable dynamic joint mobility control, a haptic thimble device (2.27-52.815 Nmm−1 at 1% displacement) that mimics the sensation of touching physical materials ranging from soft gel to metal surfaces, and a wearable device composed of multiple joints tailored for the arm and hand to augment haptic experiences or facilitate muscle training. We believe the presented method can help democratize compliant metastructures development and expand their versatility for broader contexts.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55591-2 |
| spellingShingle | Humphrey Yang Dinesh K. Patel Tate Johnson Ke Zhong Gina Olson Carmel Majidi Mohammad F. Islam Teng Zhang Lining Yao A compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedom Nature Communications |
| title | A compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedom |
| title_full | A compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedom |
| title_fullStr | A compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedom |
| title_full_unstemmed | A compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedom |
| title_short | A compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedom |
| title_sort | compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedom |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55591-2 |
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