An active/passive joint for reconfiguration applications

In this paper, an active/passive reconfigurable 2R joint is presented. Direct and inverse kinematic problems and the force transmission are considered. The advantages of the current design show its superiority with respect to previous designs. A prototype of the joint was built and tested, proving the viability of the concept. The proposed joint can be applied in reconfigurable manipulators, serial robot arm wrists, humanoid robot shoulder and waist, where 2R active joints are required.The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support received from the Spanish Government through the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Project DPI2015-67626-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE)) and the financial support given to the research group through the project with Ref. IT949-16, given by the Departamento de Educación, Política Lingüística y Cultura of the Regional Government of the Basque Country