Design of compliance in robots

Because today´s manipulators are generally limited to position-control functions and burdened by the excessive mass implicit in their machine-tool design assumptions, a novel design is proposed to overcome these limitations and lead to lighter, faster, and more useful robots. An elbow-manipulator design with highly geared motors is suggested in which the forelimb is made flexible in one plane, and is light in comparison to the loads. The compliant limb is located between kinematically redundant joints that can rotate the limb, thereby adjusting the manipulator end-point compliance. Nonlinear techniques can be used to augment vibration damping. Such a manipulator can carry out force-control and low-compliance tasks as well as conventional position-controlled functions