Structure Design of a Tendon-driven Robotic Arm Considering Safety and Durability

Abstract

Anthropomorphic robotic arms have attracted more and more attention since it is human-friendly with the same size and movement characteristics like a human arm. A new 7-DoF (Degrees of Freedom) anthropomorphic robotic arm is proposed in this paper. To achieve high torques while keeping down the weight, all the motors are coupled with wires. The shoulder joint is a 3-motor 3-DoF coupled driving structure, the elbow joint and wrist joint are 2-motor 2-DoF coupled driving structures. The structures were designed considering safety and durability problems caused by the characteristics of wires. The developed robotic arm weighed 2.2 kg, while being able to a 1.5 kg load. Evaluation static force analysis and simulation were conducted to investigate the performance.