Novel Spring Mechanism Enables Iterative Energy Accumulation under Force and Deformation Constraints

C. Dempsey and D.J. Braun, Novel Spring Mechanism Enables Iterative Energy Accumulation under Force and Deformation Constraints, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, London, United Kingdom, pp. 7391-7397, 2023.

This paper introduces a floating spring mechanism that allows energy to be accumulated iteratively across multiple motion cycles, overcoming force and deformation limits of humans and motors. The design enables the weight of a human or robot to incrementally compress a spring, decoupling the required compression force from the total energy stored. This approach advances beyond conventional springs, which are limited by single-cycle force and motion constraints.

Why it matters: Assistive devices and robots often face strict limits on how much energy can be stored in a spring. By enabling iterative energy accumulation, this mechanism could allow spring-driven systems to perform demanding tasks without requiring large actuators, opening new possibilities for efficient human augmentation and robotic assistance.