The Design of a Fully Compliant Statically Balanced Mechanism

This paper describes a fully compliant statically balanced mechanism that can undergo greater than 100° of motion. Because compliant mechanisms achieve their motion from the deflection of their constituent members, there is some strain energy associated with actuated positions. By introducing an appropriate preload, strain energy can be held constant. This can reduce or nearly eliminate the input force required from the actuating device. This paper describes the statically balanced concept and demonstrates its optimization, testing, and implementation for a haptic pantograph mechanism. The statically balanced properties of the constituent mechanisms result in an assembly with two balanced degrees of freedom.