Towards human friendly hydraulics - a passivity approach

Prof Perry Y. Li (University of Minnesota)

Many hydraulic applications involve direct human control and the system manipulating and interacting with the physical environment. I will present recent research towards making such applications safer and more human friendly by designing hydraulic systems that appear to both the human and the physical environment as if they are passive two port devices, i.e. systems that do not generate energy on their own. I will describe a new class of "passive valves" obtained by passifying the usual four way directional control valves using either structural modification or via mechatronics feedback. Using the "passive valve", a passive bilateral hydraulic teleoperation system is designed in which a human operates a hydraulic actuator via a force feedback joystick. The system allows the human to feel as if he is directly manipulating a passive mechanical tool.

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