Print Email Facebook Twitter Intrinsically Safe Robot Arm: Adjustable Static Balancing and Low Power Actuation Title Intrinsically Safe Robot Arm: Adjustable Static Balancing and Low Power Actuation Author Vermeulen, M. Wisse, M. Faculty Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering Department Biomechanical Engineering Date 2010-03-20 Abstract We present a design for a manipulator that is intrinsically mechanically safe, i.e. it can not cause pain (let alone damage) to a human being even if the control system has a failure. Based on the pressure pain thresholds for human skin, we derive a pinching safety constraint that limits the actuator torque, and an impact safety constraint that results in a trade-off between mass and velocity. To fulfill all constraints, the manipulator requires a spring balancing system that counteracts gravity in all configurations of the manipulator. This allows the use of extremely low-power DC motors (only 4.5 W). Thanks to the torque and speed limitations of these motors the manipulator is indeed intrinsically safe, yet still capable of moving a useful payload of 1.2 kg over a distance of 0.8 m in 1.5 s. Subject safe robotgravity compensationgravity balancinglow power robotmanipulator To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:dc35d9a7-d9e3-42fe-bdde-8247a478c661 DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-010-0048-9 Publisher Springer ISSN 1875-4791 Source International Journal of Social Robotics, 2 (3), 2010 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Files PDF vermeulen_2010.pdf 857.61 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:dc35d9a7-d9e3-42fe-bdde-8247a478c661/datastream/OBJ/view