Abstract
A gravity balance mechanism for spatial robotic manipulator is proposed. In this design, a parallelogram linkage mechanism, pulleys and springs are utilized to accomplish the balance. As a passive structure, it needs no motors or actuators, and safety is another great highlight of the mechanism. The balance mechanism can solve the balance problem of both planar 2-link mechanism and spatial 2-link mechanism (a roll-pitch-yaw-roll 2-link mechanism) by adding a rotational degree of freedom. This is a more simple and effective method to solve the balance problem of spatial linkage system, especially the linkage system of multi-degree of freedom joint. And the mechanism can be extended to solve a multilink balance problem.
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Recommended by Associate Editor Kyoungchul Kong
Jie Zhao received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Mechatronics Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), Harbin, China, in 1990 and 1996, respectively. He is a professor and Head of Robotics Institute of Mechatronics Engineering at HIT. His research interests include industrial robots and bionic robots.
Yanhe Zhu received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Mechatronics Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), Harbin, China, in 1998 and 2004, respectively. He is a professor of Mechatronics Engineering at HIT. His research interests include biped robots and robotic exoskeleton.
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Chen, Y., Liu, Y., Li, C. et al. Gravity balance mechanism for a spatial robotic manipulator. J Mech Sci Technol 30, 865–869 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-015-0943-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-015-0943-y