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Guowu Wei - IEEE Xplore Author Profile

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Friction Stir Welding (FSW) has recently emerged as an effective solid-state joining technique for welding high-strength aluminum alloys and light metals, particularly in the railway industry. However, a limitation of using FSW in this industry is the restricted workspace available. To address this issue, a 3-PUU (Prismatic and Universal Joints) parallel machine with 3-DoF (Degrees of Freedom) tra...Show More
This article explores a hydraulically powered double-joint soft robotic fish called HyperTuna and a set of locomotion optimization methods. HyperTuna has an innovative, highly efficient actuation structure that includes a four-cylinder piston pump and a double-joint soft actuator with self-sensing. We conducted deformation analysis on the actuator and established a finite element model to predict ...Show More
Soft pneumatic actuators often struggle to achieve both a high degree of freedom and high bending stiffness simultaneously. In this letter, we present a bionic soft pneumatic actuator inspired by the intricate musculature of the elephant trunk, which employs a dual actuation mode of transverse-longitudinal muscles to enable flexible spatial motion. By synergistically combining three different elas...Show More
Powered knee prostheses promise to improve the mobility of transfemoral amputees by imitating the biomechanics of the missing knee joint. Unfortunately, the heavy weight and short battery life severely limit the application of powered prostheses. Here, we present a lightweight powered knee prosthesis, which employs a series elastic actuator (SEA) integrating a high torque density external rotor mo...Show More
To overcome the challenges posed by the complex structure and large parameter requirements of existing classification models, the authors propose an improved extreme learning machine (ELM) classifier for human locomotion intent recognition in this study, resulting in enhanced classification accuracy. The structure of the ELM algorithm is enhanced using the logistic regression (LR) algorithm, signi...Show More
This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the existing landscape of conventional and highly biomimetic robotic arms, highlighting a prevalent tradeoff between size, range of motion, and load capacity in current highly biomimetic designs. To overcome the limitations, this article undertakes an in-depth exploration of the human shoulder, focusing on the identification of mechanical intellige...Show More
This article delineates the formulation and verification of an innovative robotic elbow-and-forearm system design, mirroring the intricate biomechanics of human musculoskeletal systems. Conventional robotic models often undervalue the substantial function of soft tissues, which provides a compromise between compactness, safety, stability, and range of motion. In contrast, this study proposes a hol...Show More
Leg properties have been involved in the broad study of human walking from mechanical energy to motion prediction of robotics. However, the variable leg elasticities and their functions during gait have not been fully explored. This study presented that the fundamental leg properties during human walking comprise axial stiffness, rest leg length, tangential stiffness and force-free leg angles. We ...Show More
During loading carriage, the pack interaction forces exerted on the human torso directly relate to perceived discomfort and the risk of injury. Understanding these interactions will help to assess human health in real-world scenarios. However, 3-D interaction forces between the pack and torso are challenging to be directly measured from single-function sensors. In this article, we proposed a senso...Show More
The 3-PUU (Prismatic and Universal joints) translational parallel machine is one of the three-degree-of-freedom (DOF) parallel manipulators, which was previously introduced by Tsai & Joshi in 2002. Since it performs 3-DOF and pure translation motion, this mechanism can be used as a welding robot that only needs to move in a translation manner. This paper discusses the kinematics and singularity an...Show More
This letter presents the design and development of a novel compact motor-based non-linear stiffness soft actuator used for tendon-driven joints, i.e. a magnet-integrated soft actuator (MISA). By applying a pair of antagonistic MISAs to a joint, it is capable of achieving joint stiffness adjustment and joint torque adaptation. The joint with MISAs can achieve a wide range of joint stiffness, about ...Show More
In this article, a new hydraulic semi-active knee (HSAK) prosthesis is proposed. Compared with knee prostheses driven by hydraulic-mechanical coupling or electromechanical systems, we novelly combine independent active and passive hydraulic subsystems to solve the incompatibility between low passive friction and high transmission ratio of current semi-active knees. The HSAK not only has the low fr...Show More
Human finger joints are conventionally simplified as rigid joints in robotic hand design and biomechanical hand modelling, due to their anatomic and morphologic complexity. However, our understanding of the effect of the finger joint configuration on the resulting hand performance is still primitive. In this study, we systematically investigate the grasping performance of the hands with the conven...Show More
Understanding the distinct functions of human muscles could not only help professionals obtain insights into the underlying mechanisms that we accommodate compromised neuromuscular system, but also assist engineers in developing rehabilitation devices. This study aims to determine the contribution of major muscle and the energy flow in the human musculoskeletal system at four sub-phases (collision...Show More
This article presents a novel polycentric hybrid knee prosthesis (PHKP) by enabling a multibar linkage to work for high-torque activities in active mode and for low-torque activities in passive mode. The mode transition is implemented the servo-controlled telescopic slide rails. Distinguished from the single-axis hybrid knee prostheses, the PHKP knee provides geometric stability in stance and nota...Show More
The human hand has a fantastic ability to interact with various objects in the dynamic unstructured environment of our daily activities. We believe that this outstanding performance benefits a lot from the unique biological features of the hand musculoskeletal system. In Part I of this article, a bio-inspired anthropomorphic robotic finger was developed, based on which two human-finger-like biomec...Show More
Exploring human hand fundamental biomechanical features and exploiting them to robotic hands have been proven to be an effective approach to enhancing artificial hands' performance, especially when interacting with various objects in dynamic unstructured environments. In this article, a bioinspired anthropomorphic robotic finger is first proposed, which embeds human finger musculoskeletal features...Show More
A hybrid knee prosthesis is proposed in this letter, which consists of a polycentric structure in passive mode for low-torque activities and a single-axis structure in active mode for high-torque activities. A novel mode transition mechanism controls self-holding electromagnets for switching modes between the four-bar linkage and single-axis structure. Compared with the conventional single-axis hy...Show More
First order cutaneous neurons allow object recognition, texture discrimination, and sensorimotor feedback. Their function is well-investigated under passive stimulation while their role during active touch or sensorimotor control is understudied. To understand how human perception and sensorimotor controlling strategy depend on cutaneous neural signals under active tactile exploration, the finite ...Show More
The level of joint laxity, which is an indicator of accurate diagnosis for musculoskeletal conditions is manually determined by a physician. Studying joint laxity via artificial joints is an efficient and economical way to improve patient experience and joint proficiency. However, most of study focus on the joint geometry but are inadequate with regard to the tailored mechanical properties of soft...Show More
Quantifying the effect of routing and topology of the inter-connected finger extensor mechanism on hand grasping performances is a long-standing research problem for the better clinical diagnosis, surgical planning and biomimetic hand development. However, it is technically demanding to measure the hand performance parameters such as the contact forces and contact area during hand manipulation. It...Show More
This paper for the first time presents a deployable quadrotor based on a deployable hexahedral mechanism. Structure design of the proposed deployable quadrotor is introduced and mobility and kinematics of the associated deployable hexahedral mechanism are briefly addressed. Then kinematics and dynamics of the proposed deployable quadrotor are established and the results are verified through numeri...Show More
This paper presents for the first time a reconfigurable quadcopter with foldable rotor arms and a deployable carrier. Structure design of the proposed quadcopter is presented and dynamic model of the whole system is established. Numerical simulation is then implemented illustrating manoeuvrability and stability of the proposed quadcopter. Further, using FEA method structure analysis of the reconfi...Show More
This paper presents a novel anthropomorphic metamorphic hand with a reconfigurable palm. Structure of the metamorphic hand is briefly introduced, followed by prehension analysis based on the opposition-space model. Manipulability of the hand is then studied combining the characteristic matrix equation and singular value decomposition, leading to the explicit symbolic closed-form solutions. Further...Show More
This paper presents models for description and identification of various cartons in their discrete states, and proposes a new approach to describe the transformation of configuration states during carton manipulation in a packaging process. The method makes use of matrix operations which can be used to identify and model the steps and changes in carton manipulation at different stages of a packagi...Show More