Development of collision force suppression mechanism

This paper presents the joint mechanism of a manipulator capable of passively suppressing collision forces. The suppression mechanism consists of an inner circular disk, outer circular disks, compression springs, etc. If a manipulator having this suppression mechanism is collided with an object, the manipulator will rotate with the outer circular disks in the direction of the collision force. Then, the collision force is passively reduced without any control. On the other hand, if the collision object is eliminated, the manipulator returns to a desired task. Through collision experiments, the effectiveness of the mechanism is verified.