A Driving Mechanism of Manipulators and its Energy Consumption Characteristics

Manipulators resemble human beings in shape of an arm. They also have flexibilities in performance capacity and have been utilized for various kinds of work in place of human beings. Many researches seeking for the design and control of manipulators have been developed and valuable results for energy-efficient manipulators have been reported. However, the driving mechanism of manipulators is, in many cases, different from that of a human arm. Human arms provide not only uniarticular muscles but also biarticular muscles, while manipulators are only equipped with one motor for each joint. With regard to the biarticular muscles, it is reported that they play an important role in performing advanced dynamic functions of human arm movements. This study investigates the relationship between driving mechanisms and energy consumption, and the driving mechanism equipped with a driving motor acting on the shoulder and the elbow joints is proposed.