There is broad agreement that elastic elements are similarly useful in legged robotic systems [1] as they are in nature [2]. The two primary ways of incorporating springs in the actuators of legged robots are to place them either in parallel or in series (Fig 1). While both types of actuator have been implemented in robots [3–5], it is still unclear which is the better choice from an energy con...

Rehabilitation of the upper extremities, especially the hands, is critical for the restoration of independence in activities of daily living for individuals suffering from hand disabilities. There are currently two major challenges in developing robotic devices for hand rehabilitation: (1) design of a device that is compatible with the complex geometry and nonlinear biomechanics of the human ha...

Compliant Actuators are desirable for human friendly robotics, especially for assistive and rehabilitation robots that have direct physical interaction with human users. Various designs of Series Elastic Actuators (SEA) have been developed for these applications. This paper presents a novel SEA design with variable impedance for human-friendly robotics applications that overcomes the major limi...

Elastic waves, especially guided waves, generated by a piezoelectric actuator/sensor network, have shown great potential for on-line health monitoring of advanced aerospace, nuclear, and automotive structures in recent decades. Piezoelectric materials can function as both actuators and sensors in these applications due to wide bandwidth, quick response and low costs. One of the most fundamental...

Reachability and Real-Time Actuation Strategies for the Active SLIP Model by Giulia Piovan Running and hopping follow similar patterns for different animals, independent of the number of legs employed. An aerial phase alternates with a ground contact phase, during which the center of mass moves as if a spring were compressed and then extended to recover stored elastic energy. Hence, consisting ...