A compact series elastic element using a rubber compression mechanism.

This paper presents the concept of a new rubber compression mechanism for rotary compact series elastic elements, which can be used in robotic joints in human-machine interaction devices. A compact elastic element is realized using rubber materials with a higher specific energy and energy density than steel or fiberglass, which are commonly used in commercial springs. To overcome the nonlinearity and hysteresis of the proposed compression mechanism, a mathematical Bouc-Wen model developed through parameter identification is proposed. This paper describes the working principle of the new elastic element and presents the modeling method. Experiments on the Bouc-Wen model conducted to demonstrate the suggested mechanism are reported, and the results show that the proposed elastic element can be used for robotic joints in human-machine interaction devices.