Review, categorization and comparison of 1 DOF static balancers

Conference paper (2015)

Authors

A.T. Steinthorsson Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
M.E. Aguirre Mechatronic Systems Design - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
A.G. Dunning Mechatronic Systems Design - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
J.L. Herder Mechatronic Systems Design - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
Research Group
Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) (TU Delft)
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

2015

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Department

Biomechanical Engineering

Research Group

Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology

Abstract

A static balancer is a mechanism used to force compensate mechanical systems and has been used in applications such as improving haptic feedback in surgical instruments and lowering motor loads in robotic systems. Currently no complete overview exists of all SB methods, this paper can be seen as an extension to earlier work by introducing more static balancing categories and methods. The goal is to have a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art to aid designers in selecting the appropriate static balancer technology for mechanical systems. Existing designs are categorized based on the energy storage mechanism, e.g. elastic energy storage mechanisms. Critical design parameters are extracted from published literature to form the basis of comparison of the different categories. A performance criterium is defined to illustrate balancing capabilities as a function of system size. The three comparison parameters are: CompensatedForce Volume ; SBStroke Volume ; Energy Volume The comparison results show that compliant flexure balancers are the best selection for balancing systems while keeping minimal size. Theoretical calculations show that there is still ample room to improve current balancers with regard to the chosen balancer criteria.