dSEDA: a Differential Series Elastic Damped Actuator

Compliant actuation bestows robots with the ability to cope with unstructured environments, move with agility, and interact safely with humans at the expense of reduced tracking accuracy. The inclusion of dampening components aims to reduce oscillatory dynamics and partially restore precision without sacrificing the previously obtained characteristics. This paper introduces the concept and design of a novel damped compliant actuator suitable for building multi-degree of freedom systems. The proposed unit has a unique actuator topology that has never been seen before in the literature. The gearbox is used as a differential component, allowing the design of compact units without giving up safety and accuracy enhancements. We present and analyze the actuator's model and experimentally characterize the actuator prototype and the elastic and damping component.