Design of a New Variable Stiffness Actuator and Application for Assistive exercise control.pdfVIP

Abstract—Focusing on the physical interaction between people and machines within safety constraints in versatile situations, this paper proposes a new, efficient actuation approach, continuous-state coupled elastic actuation (CCEA), to provide oncoming human-machine systems with an intrinsic programmable stiffness capacity to shape output force corresponding to the deviation between human motions and set positions of the system. As one of all the possible CCEA systems, a prototype of a 2-DOF coupled elastic actuator is designed to provide a compromise between performance and