Abstract
Recently, human and robots have started to work together in the field of medical treatment and welfare. In such an environment, it is required that robots operate in a safe manner that avoids collision or inadvertent contact with human colleagues. This study desrcibes the development of a manipulator with the opposed placement type electro-rheological (ER) clutches contributing a collision force reduction. The main feature of developed manipulator is the structure that sandwiches the link between two ER clutches and equips the link with a pneumatic cushion. Thus, the input shaft of each clutch is rotated in the opposite direction via a bevel gear, a spur gear, and a motor. As a result of reversing the link by switching the clutch, the manipulator can high-speed reverse. As well, position control, reverse motion control and collision experiments were performed regarding the developed manipulator.
