DESIGN AND PROTOTYPING OF A MODULAR AND SCALABLE COMPLIANT VARIABLE STIFFNESS MECHANISM OPERABLE IN THE THREE CARTESIAN DIRECTIONS - Masters Thesis

What are Variable Stiffness Mechanisms? VSMs (or VSAs) are mechanical or mechatronic devices capable of adjusting their stiffness by leveraging mechanical principles to modulate how a robotic system reacts to loads. Integrating these can include benefits like reduced wear and increased safety and performance. But they often suffer disadvantages like cumbersome sizes, intricate designs, and designed only for rotational degrees of freedom. Motivation & Objective As industrial robots expand, their energy use and wear become increasingly more important. Thus we introduce a novel Cartesian Variable Stiffness Mechanism (CVSM) mounted between the end effector and robot arm to reduce jerk and offer greater payload manipulability. Project Goals 1. Build a functional prototype operable in each of the Cartesian directions (X,Y,Z) 2. Independently tune stiffness in each direction 3. Be able to mount to any robot 4. Design to handle 5 lbs and permit +/- 10mm deflection