Comparison of under-actuated and fully-actuated serial robotic arms: a case study

Under-actuated robots are very interesting in terms of cost and weight since they can result in a state-controllable system with a number of actuators lower than the number of joints. In this paper, a comparison between an under-actuated planar 3 degrees of freedom (DOF) robot and a comparable fully-actuated 2 degrees of freedom robot is presented, mainly focusing on the performances in terms of trajectories, actuator torques, and vibrations. The under-actuated system is composed of 2 active rotational joints followed by a passive rotational joint equipped with a torsional spring. The fully-actuated robot is inertial equivalent to the under-actuated manipulator: the last link is equal to the sum of the last two links of the under-actuated system. Due to the conditions on the inertia distribution and spring placement, in a simple point-to-point movement the last passive joint starts and ends in a zero-value configuration, so the 3 DOF robot is equivalent, in terms of initial and final configuration, to the 2 DOF fully-actuated robot, thus they can be compared. Results show how while the fully actuated robot is better in terms of reliable trajectory and actuator torques, the under-actuated robot wins in flexibility and vibration behavior.