Ultra-lightweight forearm with a parallel-wire mechanism

A robot should provide a comfortable service to consumers, with proper speed and accuracy — ideally as fast as a human servant. Conversely, the robot should also be absolutely safe for both humans and the environment, which is why conventional service robots move so slowly. Unfortunately, such slow robots are very difficult to market. In response, the mass of the robot arm should be reduced to allow rapid motion, which remains safe. In this paper, we introduce the concept of the “ultra-lightweight arm” and design and develop a prototype ultra-lightweight forearm, part of a 7-DOF ultra-lightweight arm. Experimental results show that it achieves both proper weight and power.