Neck Design Solution Adopted in the Development of a New Version of a Social Robot

摘要

In the development of a new social robotic head, the mechanical solution of the robot neck has a major importance due to the fact that this one must support all the head components and must provide soft and natural movements of the robotic head. Hence, to choose the most suitable design, a systematic exploration of the neck mechanical solutions developed until now was conducted. Based on it and, also, on the preliminary imposed criteria, the adopted solution of the neck used for the new design of the social robot was a serial mechanism with 3 degrees of freedom, actuated with high torque servomotors. Additionally, to reduce the motors torque and for gravity compensation, the neck was equipped with helical tension springs. In this paper, a mechanical solution of the neck adopted by the authors, and a mathematical model, will be presented.