抄録
For designing a safe robot, to introduce soft mechanisms on joint or elastic members is an effective way. However, softness caused by elasticity also brings some disadvantages, i.e. oscillation of the end effector and low power transmission for task execution. So far, a torsional spring mechanism with nonlinear stiffness has been developed. The stiffness of this mechanism changes from zero to extremely high based on mechanical singularity. In this paper, we develop a quadruped robot with this mechanism on knee joints and evaluate the impact absorption and high power transmission, which means the simultaneous realization of softness and stiffness.
