Title: Experimental investigations for the characterisation of an SMA-bias spring actuator in a flexible tube manipulator

Authors: Nisha Bhatt; Sanjeev Soni; Ashish Singla

Addresses: Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala, 147004, India ' Central Scientific Instruments Organization (CSIR-CSIO), Chandigarh, 160030, India ' Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala, 147004, India

Abstract: The present article describes an application of shape memory alloy (SMA) spring-based actuator for the development of a flexible tube manipulator intended for tumour irradiation application. A constitutive model is proposed that incorporates the nonlinearity of SMA spring along with the loading history of material and predicts 4 N as the force generation capability of the SMA-bias spring actuator. The simulation results follow the characteristic profile of SMA in both normal as well as cyclic loading conditions. Further, experimental characterisation of the actuator is carried out to determine various parameters like modulus of rigidity, critical shear stresses, etc. and a proportional integral derivative (PID) controller is experimentally implemented which made the tip of the tube following a series of predefined points. The maximum positional error is around 5%, which shows the positional tracking ability of the developed manipulator and the maximum bending angle of the tube is 74.6°.

Keywords: SMA actuator; flexible tube manipulator; PID controller; constitutive model; experimental setup; characterisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMPT.2023.130199

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology, 2023 Vol.66 No.3/4, pp.289 - 311

Received: 07 Feb 2022
Accepted: 02 Aug 2022
Published online: 06 Apr 2023 *

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