High Efficiency Driving of Vibration Propulsion Mechanism by Decentralized Control

Abstract

This research concerns high efficiency propulsion method of multi-articulated robot by decentralized control using local feedback control. Recently, various robots which are useful when disasters happened have been studied. At the time of disaster, these robots need to promote with high efficiency. To answer this demand, the propulsion method using resonance was proposed. On the other hand, natural frequencies of propulsion robot are varying in synchronization with the change of external environment. In this paper, the control method of propulsion robot which drives at the resonance point automatically is proposed. Especially, investigation of the proposed method for large degree of freedom robot is done. Firstly, vibration propulsion mechanism is introduced. This device promotes using the difference of friction coefficient between moving forward and moving backward. It is easy to measure natural frequencies of the device without the difference of friction coefficient. Secondly, the design method controller of decentralized control is shown. The proposed decentralized control uses the local feedback control. The driving method using local feedback control can oscillate natural vibration of vibration propulsion mechanism by self-excited vibration. The decentralized control realizes the synchronization of the actuators through natural vibration mode by the force entrainment of the self-excited oscillator. The propulsion experiment by centralized control and decentralized control is examined to evaluate propulsion efficiency. As the result, the propulsion method by decentralized control is high efficiency as compared with the method by centralized control.