Novel Compliant Actuators for Robots & Humans

Actuators are everywhere in life, from automobiles, to cranes, to RC cars. However, these devices usually consist of an electric motor applied directly to the load it is supposed to push, and always cost energy to exert force. We focus on developing “compliant actuators” which consist of springs attached in series or parallel with motors.

D.J. Braun, V. Chalvet and A. Dahiya, Positive-Negative Stiffness Actuators, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2018.