First Week of Research

Well, after the first week of research I have finally gotten accustomed to environment. Other than finding my way around Georgia Tech by foot, I have also learned a lot about research involving pneumatic systems to power robotic devices in an MRI room. My project is a continuation of the research conducted the year before, and another REU student - whose name happens to be Johnathan - and I will be designing and manufacturing a robot that rotates the arm.

Throughout my readings, I noticed that pneumatic rotary devices are more common than I thought. Many industries use vane actuators for shutting off or opening valves. And surprisingly enough many of them have quite a high percentage of efficiency ranging from 70 to 95%. Although the actuator we are designing will be in a much smaller scale, many pneumatic rotary actuators can produce a very large torque. Most vendors sell actuators that are made of magnetic materials which are not MRI compatible, so at the moment we are trying to build one from scratch. Having prior knowledge about fluid power was useful in starting this research and now all that's left to actually start prototyping and see if it works.