An energy approach to the design of single degree of freedom gravity balancers with compliant joints

A gravity balancer is a mechanism that compensates the weight of a mass over a range of motion. When no friction is present, this gives an energy efficient mechanism and little effort is required to move an object. Conventional mechanisms have drawbacks due to the use of conventional rigid joints. Compliant joints do not have these disadvantages...

Design of a compliant steerable arthroscopic punch

Meniscectomy is a medical procedure where ruptured meniscal tissue is removed within the knee joint. The con- ventional cutters fail to reach the entire meniscus. Therefore, the focus of this study is to create a cutter with a steerable tip, which allows sideway steering to increase the reacha- bility within the knee joint. Additionally, this...

Insect-inspired wing actuation structures based on ring-type resonators

In this paper, we illustrate and study the opportunities of resonant ring type structures as wing actuation mechanisms for a flapping wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV). Various design alternatives are presented and studied based on computational and physical models. Insects provide an excellent source of inspiration for the development of the wing...