A FREE PISTON COMPRESSOR AS A PNEUMATIC MOBILE ROBOT POWER SUPPLY: DESIGN, CHARACTERIZATION AND EXPERIMENTAL OPERATION

Authors

  • José A. Riofrio Department of Mechanical Engineering – Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
  • Eric J. Barth Department of Mechanical Engineering – Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Keywords:

free-piston engine, over expansion engine, pneumatic compressor, portable power supply, untethered robots

Abstract

The design and dynamic characterization of a free piston compressor (FPC) is presented in this paper. The FPC is a proposed device that utilizes combustion of a hydrocarbon fuel to compress air into a high-pressure supply tank, thus serving as a portable pneumatic power supply for mobile untethered robotic systems. The device is configured such that the transduction from thermal energy to stored energy, in the form of compressed gas, is efficient relative to other smallscale portable power supply systems. This efficiency is achieved by matching the dynamic load of the compressor to the ideal adiabatic expansion of the hot gas combustion products. It is shown that a load that is dominantly inertial provides a nearly ideally matched load for achieving high thermodynamic efficiency in a heat engine. The device proposed exploits this fact by converting thermal energy first into kinetic energy of the free piston, and then compressing air during a separate compressor phase. The proposed technology is intended to provide a compact pneumatic power supply source appropriate for human-scale robots. An analytical model of the proposed device is developed, and an FPC prototype is designed and built and its yielded experimental results are compared with theoretical.

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Author Biographies

José A. Riofrio, Department of Mechanical Engineering – Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

José A. Riofrio received the B. S. degree in engineering physics from Elizabethtown College, PA, and the M. S. in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2003 and 2005 respectively. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Vanderbilt.

Eric J. Barth, Department of Mechanical Engineering – Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Eric J. Barth received the B. S. degree in engineering physics from the University of California at Berkeley, and the M. S. and Ph. D. degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology in mechanical engineering in 1994, 1996, and 2000 respectively. He is currently an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University. His research interests include design, modelling and control of fluid power systems, and actuator development for autonomous robots.

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Published

2007-08-01

How to Cite

Riofrio, J. A., & Barth, E. J. (2007). A FREE PISTON COMPRESSOR AS A PNEUMATIC MOBILE ROBOT POWER SUPPLY: DESIGN, CHARACTERIZATION AND EXPERIMENTAL OPERATION. International Journal of Fluid Power, 8(1), 17–28. Retrieved from https://journals.riverpublishers.com/index.php/IJFP/article/view/544

Issue

2007: Vol 08 Iss 1

Section

Original Article