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The nonlinear stiffness actuator (NSA) is a type of compliant joint with variable stiffness that is necessary for human-machine collaboration and has been the focus of extensive research attention. This academic work presents the principle of a torsion spring-connected nonlinear stiffness actuator (TSNSA), a NSA suitable for implementing revolute motions, which contrasts with existing NSAs that often have bulky mechanisms and are affected by a limited range of movement. It has a split sleeve, disc springs, and cam mechanisms (CMs) that when correctly configured, can passively and actively adjust stiffness, where the speed of stiffness regulation can be effectively improved. The mathematical model of a split sleeve inserted into a torsion spring is designed to analyze the behavior of mechanical components. Furthermore, a detailed CM profile has been designed to obtain the desired nonlinear stiffness. Its theoretical analysis includes numerical simulations with results consistent with the desired deflection-torque profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variable stiffness actuator (VSA) can significantly improve the dynamic performance of robots and ensure safety in human robot interaction. In this paper, a novel structure-controlled VSA which achieves a lower minimal stiffness while the size and load capacity remain unchanged is introduced. Stiffness variation is implemented by changing the effective length of parallel-assembled-folded serial leaf springs presented in this paper, which makes the adjustment of stiffness easier and driven by an independent motor. A modified analytical model of joint stiffness is built, which takes the gap between leaf springs and rollers into consideration. Experiments prove that the modified model is more accurate comparing with the ideal model which ignores the gap. Further analyses show that the gap can even make serious impacts on leaf spring-based structure-controlled VSA in other performances such as deformability and energy capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For tasks that require robot–environment interaction, stiffness control is important to ensure stable contact motion and collision safety. The variable stiffness approach has been used to address this type of control. We propose a hybrid variable stiffness actuator (HVSA), which is a variable stiffness unit design. The proposed HVSA is composed of a hybrid control module based on an adjustable moment-arm mechanism, and a drive module with two motors. By controlling the relative motion of gears in the hybrid control module, position and stiffness of a joint can be simultaneously controlled. The HVSA provides a wide range of joint stiffness due to the nonlinearity provided by the adjustable moment arm. Furthermore, the rigid mode, which behaves as a conventional stiff joint, can be implemented to improve positioning accuracy when a robot handles a heavy object. In this paper, the mechanical design features and related analysis are explained. We show that the HVSA can provide a wide range of stiffness and rapid responses according to changes in the stiffness of a joint under varying loads by experiments. The effectiveness of the rigid mode is verified by some experiments on position tracking under high-load conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]