Customized Series Elastic Actuator for a Safe and Compliant Human-Robot Interaction: Design and Characterization

When it comes to robotic-mediated rehabilitation it is mandatory to design a system that guarantees a safe and compliant human-machine interaction. Dealing with rehabilitative upper limb exoskeletons, Series Elastic Actuators offer a potential solution for this purpose. This work proposes four different solutions for SEAs' spring design. After an analysis on the mechanical requirements, four different solutions are explored and presented. The performances of the proposed highly integrated SEAs are compared. An initial static characterization provided insights on the linearity and repeatability of each spring torque-angle performances. The dynamics of the springs and their frequency responses are then analysed to show how it is possible to exploit our system for human-robot interaction applications.