A new variable stiffness design: Matching requirements of the next robot generation

Facing new tasks, the conventional rigid design of robotic joints has come to its limits. Operating in unknown environments current robots are prone to failure when hitting unforeseen rigid obstacles. Moreover, safety constraints are a major aspect for robots interacting with humans. In order to ope...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation pp. 1741 - 1746
Main Authors Wolf, S., Hirzinger, G.
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.05.2008
Subjects
Acceleration
Actuators
Bandwidth
Human robot interaction
Mechanical energy
Orbital robotics
Robotics and automation
Robustness
Safety
Torque
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Facing new tasks, the conventional rigid design of robotic joints has come to its limits. Operating in unknown environments current robots are prone to failure when hitting unforeseen rigid obstacles. Moreover, safety constraints are a major aspect for robots interacting with humans. In order to operate safely, existing robotic systems in this field are slow and have a lack of performance. To circumvent these limitations, a new robot joint with a variable stiffness approach (VS-Joint) is presented. It combines a compact and highly integrated design with high performance actuation. The VS- Joint features a highly dynamic stiffness adjustment along with a mechanically programmable system behavior. This allows an easy adaption to a big variety of tasks. A benefit of the joint is its intrinsic robustness against impacts and hard contacts, which permits faster trajectories and handling. Thus, it provides excellent attributes for the use in shoulder and elbow joints of an anthropomorphic robot arm.
ISBN:1424416469
9781424416462
ISSN:1050-4729
DOI:10.1109/ROBOT.2008.4543452