Shear Control of Elastomer Shear Pads for Variable Remote Center Compliance

摘要

Research is performed to design a new variable remote center compliance (VRCC) device with elastomer shear pads (ESP) for robot assembly. The proposed ESP VRCC has a shear controller that can change the fixed point on the top side of the ESP which is attached to the upper plate of the VRCC while the bottom side remains fixed. In this case, the ESP is under shear stress, while the axial/lateral stiffness of the ESP changes according to the amount of shear stress. Therefore, the position of the compliance center can be controlled with the shear controller because the axial/lateral stiffness of the ESP is one of the design parameters that determines the position of the compliance on the ESP VRCC. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed design, the stiffness variation of the ESP and the position of the compliance center of the new VRCC are measured at various shear stresses.