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US 8,322,695 B2Granted
Adjustable stiffness Jack Spring actuator
OwnerThomas Sugar, Kevin Hollanderinventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention is a mechanical element, commonly referred to as a “Jack Spring” that is based upon the concept of adding and subtracting coils from a spring. In particular, with the method and apparatus of the present invention, by changing the number of coils in a spring, the actual or intrinsic stiffness of the spring is structurally changed. A very simple and practical method is used to adjust the number of coils. The Jack Spring actuator of the present invention is based upon adjusting the effective structure of a spring.
Claims15
An actuator operatively coupled to a kinematic joint, the actuator comprising:
- a spring including a plurality of coils;
- a guiding element coupled to the spring and configured to divide the coils between active coils and inactive coils, wherein rotation of one of the guiding element and the spring relative to the other increases or decreases an amount of the active coils and causes the spring and guiding element to translate relative to each other;
- a motor, the spring and guiding element being coupled between the motor and the kinematic joint, wherein the motor is configured to rotate one of the spring and the guiding element relative to the other and to add energy to or remove energy from the kinematic joint by increasing or decreasing, respectively, energy stored in the active coils of the spring.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.