Energy Efficient Actuation with Variable Stiffness Actuators

Research effort in the field of variable stiffness actuators is steadily increasing, due to their wide range of possible applications and their advantages. In literature, various control methods have been proposed, solving particular problems in human-robot and robot-environment interaction applications, in which the mechanical compliance introduced by variable stiffness actuators has been shown to be beneficial. In this work, we focus on achieving energy efficient actuation of robotic systems using variable stiffness actuators. In particular, we aim to exploit the energy storing properties of the internal elastic elements.