A Comparison of some famous electromechanical soft actuators

In this paper, we investigate and compare some famous electromechanical soft actuators. Since electric motors are widely applicable in many industrial and non-industrial robots, application of electromechanical actuators are favorable. Even though they are precise, efficient and easy to control, majority of electric motors are not inherently safe enough in human-robot interactions due to lack of compliance. To provide safety and compliance, electromechanical soft actuators are designed and implemented. In this paper, two main categories of electromechanical soft actuators are analyzed and compared. The first group is series elastic actuators (SEAs) and the second category is mechanically adjustable compliance and controllable equilibrium position actuators, which are called (MACCEPAs). These two groups are compared in terms of compliance, mechanical structure and control strategy. The drawbacks and advantages of each design approach are investigated.