Damping in Compliant Actuation: A Review

Compliant actuator technology aims at building robots capable of physically interacting with humans and the environment, matching the versatility and capacity of biological systems. Recently, it underwent a significant evolution with the introduction of damping to improve performance. Such development reflects several aspects, including energy saving and oscillation mitigation. However, large damping values tend to increase the system impedance, worsening robot resilience and human safety during impacts. That suggests the importance of a correct tradeoff.