Self-supporting End Effectors: Towards Low Powered Robots for High Power Tasks

New tasks for industrial robots often require high stiffness or entail high reaction forces, which are currently provided by the robot structure itself. This leads to heavy and expensive robot structures: designed for the main task, but oversized for positioning and movement tasks.We propose a new approach to resolve these contradicting requirements: supporting the end effector directly against the workpiece or its surroundings, thus diverting the reaction forces away from the robot structure. We demonstrate this approach in a joining application and present design methods for self-supporting robotic tools as well as potential industrial applications of this technique.