Improving the response of SMA actuators

Author

Russell, R.Andrew ; Gorbet, Robert B.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Syst. Eng., Monash Univ., Clayton, Vic., Australia

Volume

3

fYear

1995

fDate

21-27 May 1995

Firstpage

2299

Abstract

Shape memory alloy (SMA) based actuators have a number of attributes which make them useful for robotic applications. Unfortunately their response is relatively slow being limited by the speed with which the SMA can be heated and cooled. This paper describes two novel developments of the basic SMA actuator which improve dynamic performance. To allow rapid heating of the shape memory alloy wire without the danger of over heating an infrared temperature sensor is introduced. Cooling is improved with the aid of a mobile heat sink. These developments are described and preliminary results are presented

Keywords

actuators; infrared detectors; robots; shape memory effects; temperature measurement; temperature sensors; SMA actuators; cooling; infrared temperature sensor; mobile heat sink; rapid heating; robotic applications; shape memory alloy based actuators; shape memory alloy wire heating; Actuators; Cooling; Energy consumption; Heat sinks; Infrared heating; Robots; Shafts; Shape memory alloys; Water heating; Wire;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Robotics and Automation, 1995. Proceedings., 1995 IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Nagoya

ISSN

1050-4729

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1965-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ROBOT.1995.525604

Filename

525604