Spatial Static Gravity Balancing With Ideal Springs

Abstract

This paper discusses mechanisms that allow for perfect static balancing of rotations about a fixed spherical joint by means of ideal springs. Using a potential energy consideration, balancing conditions of a spatial three-spring balancer will be derived. It will be shown that not satisfying these conditions causes non-constant terms in the potential energy expression of the spring-mechanism, which can be eliminated by coupling the spring-mechanism to an inverted pendulum.

Optimum Synthesis and Design of a Hood Linkage for Static Balancing in One-Step

“…Such a sequential design approach is also taken by many others found in the literature: A reactionless parallel mechanism by Faoucault and Gosselin [9]; a spherical parallel mechanism by Chaker et al [10]; a laparoscopic manipulator by Ma et al [11]; an anthropomorphic finger by Demers and Gosselin [12]; a crank-rocker flapping-wing micro air-vehicle by McDonald and Agrawal [13]; a geared four-bar mechanism by Parlaktas et al [14]; a planar manipulator by Mermertas [15]; a four-bar mechanism by Jaiswal and Jawale [16]. Spring-assisted mechanisms [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] are further examples of a long list of articles wherein the respective mechanisms are first designed/synthesized (Step 1) before optimization is performed (Step 2). The challenge is to reduce this design process to a single step: Both the mechanism synthesis and the optimization of the same, are performed together.…”