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Design and control of a compliant robotic actuator with parallel spring-damping transmission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2024

Peikang Yuan ,
Jianbin Liu ,
David T. Branson ,
Zhibin Song Open the ORCID record for Zhibin Song [Opens in a new window] ,
Shuai Wu ,
Jian S. Dai  and
Rongjie Kang Open the ORCID record for Rongjie Kang [Opens in a new window]
Peikang Yuan
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Mechanism Theory and Equipment Design of Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China
Jianbin Liu
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Mechanism Theory and Equipment Design of Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China
David T. Branson
Affiliation:
Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK
Zhibin Song
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Mechanism Theory and Equipment Design of Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China
Shuai Wu
Affiliation:
Research Institute for Frontier Science, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China
Jian S. Dai
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Mechanism Theory and Equipment Design of Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Intelligent Robotics and Flexible Manufacturing Systems, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China
Rongjie Kang*
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Mechanism Theory and Equipment Design of Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China
*
Corresponding author: Rongjie Kang; Email: rjkang@tju.edu.cn
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Abstract

Physically compliant actuator brings significant benefits to robots in terms of environmental adaptability, human–robot interaction, and energy efficiency as the introduction of the inherent compliance. However, this inherent compliance also limits the force and position control performance of the actuator system due to the induced oscillations and decreased mechanical bandwidth. To solve this problem, we first investigate the dynamic effects of implementing variable physical damping into a compliant actuator. Following this, we propose a structural scheme that integrates a variable damping element in parallel to a conventional series elastic actuator. A damping regulation algorithm is then developed for the parallel spring-damping actuator (PSDA) to tune the dynamic performance of the system while remaining sufficient compliance. Experimental results show that the PSDA offers better stability and dynamic capability in the force and position control by generating appropriate damping levels.

Keywords

compliant actuatorvariable dampingforce controlposition control
Type
Research Article
Information
Robotica , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , April 2024 , pp. 1113 - 1133
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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