Compliant Robots for Next-Generation Human-Robot Interaction

While traditional robotics provides solutions to many problems involving human-robot interaction, there is one large and critical area in which traditional robotics has fallen short: the combination of affordable and portable robotic systems with sufficient performance is currently an unsolved problem in robotics [1]. Most robots that physically interact with humans are heavy and expensive, severely limiting the widespread integration of the benefits of robotics into everyday life. In this paper we discuss possibilities for introducing the constrained compliance of compliant mechanisms to dramatically improve the portability, affordability, performance, and safety of robotic systems for physical human-robot interaction. Keywords—Robotics, Rehabilitation, Compliant Mechanisms.