PDEng positions in Robotics: Development of a fully flexure-based prosthetic hand at the University of Twente

The Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) programme Robotics is very interesting for you. The PDEng programme is a 2-year post MSc technological programme with a focus on technological design. This programme at the University of Twente contains an educational part that will be followed at the University, and a practical design project. The educational programme will have an in-depth and broadening character with ample attention for professional development and will be partly tailored to the design project.

PDEng Design Project - Development of a fully flexure-based prosthetic hand

In this PDEng project you will develop a fully flexure-based prosthetic hand of which the mechanism is realized by additive manufacturing it out of only one piece. The expected result is a demonstration of the design possibilities of flexure-based robotic mechanisms. The combined properties like maintenance free, minimized assembly, low hysteresis, precision, lightweight, low cost, hostile environment compatible, stiff (robust) joints will give this hand a lead over conventional designs.
The urgency of this research is for example shown by the major drawback regarding the hardware cost of current robotic systems, which prevents widespread application. Additive Manufacturing fully flexure-based complex mechanisms such as hands, prosthesis and humanoid spines out of one piece, minimizes assembly (generally accounting to about 80% of the cost of a product) and integrates many functions cutting the cost. In addition the flexure based robotic mechanisms become better, being more precise and lightweight.
The potential outcome will also impact the precision engineering community and aerospace research as it will offer unprecedented compact precision mechanisms with more guiding stiffness and higher vibration mode frequencies, aspects of utmost importance. Moreover, flexible joints have the potential to boost the research of clean, reliable and maintenance-free flexible implants which facilitate patient mobility.

Research field

Unlike conventional bearings, flexure joints move by elastic material deformation of slender segments. As a result they have excellent repeatable motion (no friction, no backlash, low hysteresis) which makes them popular in high-precision applications. In addition, their monolithic nature potentially eliminates maintenance and assembly, and strongly reduces part count, mass and cost.

Fundamentally, designers face a trade-off between flexibility for motion in certain desired directions and stiffness to constrain motion for guiding in the remaining directions. Typical flexures have a range of about 10 degrees, beyond which the guiding stiffness and load bearing capacity decrease dramatically. The limited range greatly impedes wide-spread application of these otherwise superior flexure joints.

Recently we have achieved an unparalleled combination of 40 degrees range of motion with only 50% decrease of guiding stiffness, by utilizing a homebred efficient non-linear computer modelling method, a state-of-the-art generic method of flexure synthesis and additive manufacturing techniques. Compared to a five flexure cross-hinge, the benchmark for guiding stiffness, the range of motion has been quadrupled. Compared to the butterfly hinge, the benchmark for range of motion, the guiding stiffness has also been quadrupled.

Based on this preliminary result, we expect that development of the method can extend the range of motion for less precise applications to 90 degrees. In the proposed PDEng project we will combine large range of motion and additive manufacturing to develop a hand prosthesis built out of one piece. The fully flexure-based approach minimizes assembly and integrates many functions cutting the cost. In addition the flexure based robotic mechanisms will become better, being more precise and lightweight. Developing Additive Manufacturing will not be part of the goal of this project. We will make use of the state-of-the-art Additive Manufacturing technology which is extensively available at public or private parties.

Deadline Application: 31-03-2016

Further details:
https://www.academictransfer.com