A bio-inspired 3-DOF light-weight manipulator with tensegrity X-joints

Benjamin Fasquelle (1, 2, 3) , Matthieu Furet (1, 2, 3) , Parag Khanna (1, 2, 3) , Damien Chablat (2, 3) , Christine Chevallereau (2, 3) , Philippe Wenger (2, 3)

1 ECN - École Centrale de Nantes
2 LS2N - Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique de Nantes
3 LS2N - équipe ReV - Robotique Et Vivant

This paper proposes a new kind of lightweight manipulators suitable for safe interactions. The proposed ma-nipulators use anti-parallelogram joints in series, referred to as X-joints. Each X-joint is remotely actuated with cables and springs in parallel, thus realizing a tensegrity one-degree-of-freedom mechanism. As compared to manipulators built with simple revolute joints in series, manipulators with tensegrity X-joint offer a number of advantages, such as an intrinsic stability, variable stiffness and lower inertia. This new design was inspired by the musculosleketon architecture of the bird neck that is known to have remarkable features such as a high dexterity. The paper analyzes in detail the kinetostatics of a X-joint and proposes a 3-degree-of-freedom manipulator made of three such joints in series. Both simulation results and experiment results conducted on a test-bed prototype are presented and discussed.

Domaines: Automatique / Robotique; Génie mécanique [physics.class-ph]

Benjamin Fasquelle, Matthieu Furet, Parag Khanna, Damien Chablat, Christine Chevallereau, et al.. A bio-inspired 3-DOF light-weight manipulator with tensegrity X-joints. ICRA'2020, May 2020, Paris, France. ⟨hal-02517339⟩