Technology Available for Licensing

Case 14017

Pulse-modulated control, non-linear friction, micron-scale valves, actuators

Keywords:

Pulse-modulated control, non-linear friction, micron-scale valves, actuators

Applications:

Control fine movement of micron-scale objects; achieve better 'feel' by eliminating the effect of friction in medical robots interacting with humans or animals; control the position of robotic manipulators or vehicles; modulate the opening and closing of pressure valves in large-scale pipelines in the energy industry.

Problem:

Various feedback control systems cannot work if the friction is highly non-linear or non-repeatable.

Technology:

This invention uses a feedback control strategy - Pulse-Modulated (PM) control - to address friction-induced non-linearities. The PM control strategy effectively overcomes the hard non-linearities in a system which cannot be remedied by other conventional feedback control strategies. This research shows that this method works well on a system with highly variable non-linearity, and is likely to find successful application to many other systems with similarly challenging non-linearities.

Advantages:

Simple and can overcome highly non-linear, non-repeatable forms of friction.

Inventors:

• Professor Neville Hogan (Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
• Yun Seong Song (Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT)

Intellectual Property:

US Patent Application 12/857827 filed on August 17, 2010

Publications:

N/A

Related Cases:

14771: Portable Pneumatic Battery: Chemical Power Generation for Fluidic Elastomer Actuators

Please contact: Christopher R. Noble MIT Technology Licensing Officer 1 Cambridge Center, Kendall Square, NE18-501 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142-1601

Email: crn@mit.edu Tel: 617-253-6966 Fax: 617–258-6790 Website: http://tlo.mit.edu