Design and workspace analysis of a light weight and high stiffness arm

Most researchers have focused on biped walking control, gait pattern planning, and high stiffness design of legs especially in early years of humanoid research. In this paper, an anthropomorphic arm is designed in order to realize some complicated manipulations which involves light weight, high stiffness, and enough workspace. Light weight and high stiffness which contributes much to preventing the humanoid from tipping over and to achieving acceptable precision are mainly realized by means of modular design, dynamic simulation, and finite element analysis. Workspace related much to complicated manipulations is analyzed according to robot arm mechanism and the effects on the stability of the humanoid robot. Experiments are finally performed to verify the characteristics of the arm.