A Curved Compliant Differential Mechanism With Neutral Stability

Differential mechanisms are remarkable mechanical elements that are widely utilized in various systems; nevertheless, conventional differential mechanisms are heavy and difficult to use in applications with limited design space. This paper presents a curved differential mechanism that utilizes a lightweight, compliant structure. This...

Zero stiffness composite shells using thermal prestress

Compliant shell mechanisms are thin walled structures that achieve their motion through deformation. Shell mechanisms are of recent interest for designing exoskeletons that are inconspicuous. One of the challenges in designing shell mechanisms is getting as much compliance as possible in certain directions while keeping the other directions...

Vibration energy harvesting: Optimal non-linear motion

An increased amount of work is done towards opti- mizing the mechanical design of vibrational energy harvesters in order to cope with varying ambient conditions. Here the performance of a piezoelectric energy harvester with varying non-linear spring characteristics is modelled and experimentally veri- fied, determining the optimal non-linear...

Statically Balanced Compliant Mechanisms: Theory and Synthesis

Design of a zero stiffness six degrees of freedom compliant precision stage

This paper presents the first zero stiffness six degrees of freedom (DoF) compliant precision stage. To deal with problems like backlash, friction and lubrication for performing ultra-precise positioning in a vacuum environment, a novel compliant structure is proposed. All six degrees of freedom are statically balanced (i.e. near zero stiffness)...