01761nas a2200193 4500008003900000245009400039210006900133260004100202520113300243653001301376100001701389700002001406700001701426700001701443700002001460700002301480700001501503856004901518 2017 d00aDesign and characterization of a novel high-compliance spring for robots with soft joints0 aDesign and characterization of a novel highcompliance spring for aMunich, Germany, 3-7 July 2017bIEEE3 a
Low stiffness elements have a number of applications in Soft Robotics, from Series Elastic Actuators (SEA) to torque sensors for compliant systems. In its general formulation, the design problem of elastic components is complex and depends on several variables: material properties, load range, shape factor and size constraints. Consequently, most of the spring designs presented in literature are based on heuristics or are optimized for specific working conditions. This work presents the design study and characterization of a scalable spoked elastic element with hinge tip constraints. We compared the proposed design with three existing spring principles, showing that the spoked solution is the convenient option for low-stiffness and low shape factor elastic elements. Therefore, a design analysis on the main scaling parameters of the spoked spring, namely number of spokes and type of constraints, is presented. Finally, an experimental characterization has been conducted on physical prototypes. The agreement among simulations and experimental results demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed concept.
10aRobotics1 aNegrello, F.1 aCatalano, M. G.1 aGarabini, M.1 aPoggiani, M.1 aCaldwell, D. G.1 aTsagarakis, N., G.1 aBicchi, A. uhttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8014029/