Design and Development of a Spiral Chain Actuator
Rakshya Subedi, Shia Gourdet, Leah Harris, Andrew Bae
Abstract
In this paper, design and experimental validation of a novel Spiral Chain Actuator and its application in a three-degree-of-freedom positioning platform are presented. Unlike previous spiral zipper actuators that rely on flexible bands and face structural integrity limitations under tensions and moment loads, the proposed design employs rigid chain pieces that interlock during rotation. This rigid architecture enables an improved load-bearing capacity while maintaining the compact, lightweight advantages of spiral actuation. We developed a positioning platform equipped with three Spiral Chain Actuators arranged in a tetrahedral configuration and validated position control through experimental testing. The results demonstrated successful position tracking across all three translational axes, which establishes foundation to develop full VTT system and it's performance evaluation in the future.