Mechanism

and
Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344
Machine Theory
www.elsevier.com/locate/mechmt

Gravity-balancing of spatial robotic manipulators

Sunil K. Agrawal *, Abbas Fattah
Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Delaware,
Newark, DE 19716, USA

Accepted 25 May 2004

Available online 2 October 2004

Abstract

This paper describes the underlying theory of gravity balanced spatial robotic manipulators through a
hybrid strategy which uses springs in addition to identication of the center of mass using auxiliary paral-
lelograms. A signicant contribution of this paper is to show that springs with xed ends are sucient to
gravity balance a spatial mechanism if the hybrid method of gravity balancing is used where the center of
mass is identied rst through auxiliary parallelograms. Also, the system remains gravity balanced even if
the orientation of the base is changed, i.e., the direction of the gravity is changed with respect to the base.
Although the method can be applied to n link spatial serial manipulators, we apply the method for gravity
compensation of two and three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) spatial manipulators. A prototype with the
underlying principles of this paper was fabricated at the University of Delaware.
2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

A machine is said to be gravity balanced if joint actuator inputs are not needed to keep the sys-
tem in equilibrium at any conguration of the machine. The system essentially behaves as if its
motion is in a zero-gravity environment. Over the years, gravity balanced machines have been

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 302 831 8049; fax: +1 302 831 3619.
E-mail address: agrawal@me.udel.edu (S.K. Agrawal).

0094-114X/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mechmachtheory.2004.05.019
1332 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344

realized through clever designs using counterweights, springs, and auxiliary parallelograms. These
designs have been introduced to linkages [2,9,7], serial robotic manipulators [8,11] and parallel
manipulators [4,10]. A number of mathematical descriptions can be given for gravity balanced
machines such as (i) system center of mass remains inertially xed during motion; (ii) potential
energy remains invariant with conguration of the system; (iii) system has counter masses that
balance the machine in every conguration.
These mathematical conditions have been physically realized through clever engineering such
as: (a) countermass on each body of the machine is used to inertially x the center of mass of
the system [2,10], (b) springs are used at appropriate places in the machine such that the sum total
of the gravitational potential energy and spring potential energy together becomes invariant with
conguration [5,3,10], (c) auxiliary parallelograms based on knowledge of geometry and inertia
property are used to physically determine the center of mass of the machine [1]. While each of
these methods have their scientic core along with advantages and disadvantages, this paper fo-
cuses on a hybrid methodology for gravity balancing of spatial robotic manipulators that com-
bines the underlying fundamentals between these dierent methods.
In the methods presented in the literature using springs, gravity balancing is achieved for a xed
direction of the gravity vector. However, using the method presented in this paper, under valid
assumption, balancing is independent of the direction of the gravity vector. In other words, the
base of the machine can be oriented in any direction with respect to the direction of the gravity
vector. This paper uses the notion of auxiliary parallelograms to rst locate the center of mass. In
addition, springs are connected through this point to make the potential energy invariant with
conguration. For these reasons, this hybrid two-step approach is desirable over approaches
which do not consider nding the center of mass rst.
At this time, only a few studies exist on gravity balancing of spatial manipulators. A spatial
two-dof serial manipulator was studied for gravity balancing in [11]. The authors proved in this
study that for a two-dof manipulator, the conditions of gravity balancing requires that the end
points of the springs move relative to the mechanism, i.e., be independently actuated. This will
require extra actuators to be mounted on the system and is undesirable. In this paper, we show
that there is no need for the end points of the springs to be actively moved if the hybrid method
presented in this paper is used.
The organization of this paper is as follows: Section 2 describes the underlying theory of gravity
balanced robotic manipulators through hybrid strategy which uses springs in addition to identi-
cation of the center of mass using auxiliary parallelograms. Next, we present the method
for gravity compensation of two and three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) spatial robotic
manipulators.

2. Gravity balancing: a hybrid method

The underlying idea behind the hybrid method is as follows: (i) determine the center of mass of
the manipulator by adding auxiliary links to machine; (ii) select springs to connect to the center of
mass such that the total potential energy of the system is invariant with conguration. This meth-
od allows one to physically determine the center of mass of the manipulator and connect this
point to the inertially xed frame through springs.
 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344 1333

2.1. Location of system center of mass

Consider an n-link articulated serial manipulator with revolute joints. The DeneavitHarten-
berg (DH) parameters for two successive links, i.e., hi, di, ai and ai, shown in Fig. 1, which char-
acterizes the motion of link i with respect to link i
1 in terms of the following transformation
matrix.
0 1
cos hi
cos ai sin hi sin ai sin hi ai cos hi
B sin h cos ai cos hi
sin ai cos hi ai sin hi C
i
1 B i C
Ti B C: 1
@ 0 sin ai cos ai di A
0 0 0 1
Here, i = 1, . . ., n and hi is the variable joint angle, while all other DH parameters are constants.
The location of the system center of mass C for this manipulator from the reference point
(origin) O is
1 X n
rOC mi rOCi ; 2
M i1
where
X
n
M mi : 3
i1

Here, M is the total mass of the manipulator, mi is the mass of link i, and rOCi is the location of the
center of mass of link i, Ci, from point O. The vector rOCi can be written as
rOCi rOOi rOi Ci ; 4
where Oi is the origin of the frame attached to link i. Using Fig. 1, rOOi is
X
i
rOOi d j zj
1 aj xj 5
j1

Fig. 1. DenavitHartenberg frame assignment for link i.

1334 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344

and the location of center of mass of link i from point Oi in its local frame is expressed as
rOi Ci bix xi biy yi biz zi : 6
Upon substitution of Eqs. (5) and (6) into Eq. (4) and inserting the result thus obtained into
Eq. (2), we obtain
" #
1 Xn X i
rOC mi d j zj
1 aj xj bix xi biy yi biz zi 7
M i1 j1

or in compact form as
X
n
rOC cix xi ciy yi ciz zi : 8
i1

Here, it is assumed d1 = 0. Note that cix, ciy, ciz are factors of geometry and mass distribution of
the links and are usually denoted by the terminology scaled lengths. Having these scaled
lengths, one can determine the location of the system center of mass by adding appropriate aux-
iliary links to machine. Here, we assume the masses of auxiliary links to be negligible as compared
to the masses of the links. This is an acceptable assumption. However, the masses of auxiliary
links can be also considered using the method presented in [1]. Vector rOC can be expressed in
any coordinate frame by expressing the vectors xi, yi and zi in this coordinate frame. For example,
in the inertially xed reference frame can be written as
rOC d1 x0 d2 y0 d3 z0 ; 9
where di, i = 1, 2, 3 are conguration dependent, functions of scaled lengths, and also DH para-
meters of all links.

2.2. Springs selection

Upon locating the system center of mass, the potential energy of the system due to the gravity
can be written as
V g Mgg  rOC ; 10
where g is the unit vector along the gravity. It can be expressed in the inertial frame as
g n1 x0 n2 y0 n3 z0 ; 11
where all ni, i = 1,2, 3 are constants.
For gravity compensation, we attach a spring of stiness k between the system center of mass C
and a point P along the gravity direction at a distance d from origin, O shown in Fig. 2. The strain
potential energy due to the spring is
1
V s kx2 ; 12
2
2
where x is

!
!
x2 k PC k  k PC k: 13
 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344 1335

Fig. 2. n-link robotic manipulator with spring connections.

!
Here, PC can be written as

!
PC rOC
rOP 14
and
rOP dn1 x0 n2 y0 n3 z0 : 15
Upon substitution of Eqs. (15) and (9) into Eq. (14) and inserting the result thus obtained into Eq.
(13) and then substituting this into Eq. (12), we obtain
1
V s kd1
dn1 2 d2
dn2 2 d3
dn3 2
: 16
2
Upon substitution of Eqs. (11) and (9) into Eq. (10) and expanding the result thus obtained, we
get Vg as
V g Mgd1 n1 d2 n2 d3 n3 : 17
Therefore, the total potential energy of the system is the sum of potential energies due to gravity
and the spring
1
V V g V s Mg
kdd1 n1 Mg
kdd2 n2 Mg
kdd3 n3 kn21 n22 n23 d 2
2
1
kd21 d22 d23 : 18
2
The total potential energy is invariant with conguration if the coecients of conguration vari-
able terms vanish. Hence, the stiness of spring k is determined by setting the coecients of dini,
i = 1, 2, 3 to zero, i.e.,
Mg
k : 19
d
The only conguration varying term remaining in the total potential energy is
1
2
kd21 d22 d23 or simply 12 krOC  rOC . It may be noted that this term is function of all joint
angles, i.e., hi, i = 1, . . ., n. The strategy is to add appropriate springs to the system such that
the total potential energy of the system becomes conguration invariant. To this end, we
should select springs such that the conguration dependent terms in potential energy vanish.
1336 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344

First, we derive and classify these terms in terms of variable joint angles and then we try to
attach springs to appropriate points such that they can cancel out the variable terms in total
potential energy. The number of extra springs depends on the number of variable terms in total
potential energy expression.
If we change the base of the manipulator with respect to the gravity vector, the unit gravity
vector g can be re-expressed in the inertial frame as
g n01 x0 n02 y0 n03 z0 ; 20
where all n0i ,
i = 1, 2, 3 are constants. This is the only change that we should make when the base
has a dierent orientations with respect to the gravity vector. It is clearly seen from the procedure
mentioned in this section that the gravity balancing of the manipulator does not depend on the
coecients n0i , i = 1, 2, 3. Therefore, this method results in gravity balancing for all directions of
the gravity vector. In other words, the base of machine can be installed in any direction with
respect to gravity vector. However, the point P in Fig. 2 remains always on the axis of the gravity
vector. In other words, OP is kept in the direction of the gravity when the base of the platform is
rotated.
In this work, it is assumed that the undeformed length of the spring is zero. In other words, the
spring force is zero when the deformation of the spring is also zero. In the physical implementa-
tion of zero free length, non-zero free length spring can be used behind the pulley where the spring
force can be transmitted through the wire [6].
The method of gravity balancing mentioned in this section is applied to n-link spatial serial
manipulators. However, to show some examples, we apply the method to gravity balancing of
two and three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) spatial manipulators in the next section. The method
can be extended to consider example of more dof serial manipulators.

3. Examples

3.1. Two DOF robotic manipulator

Consider a two DOF spatial manipulator, i.e., n = 2 in Fig. 2. Here, the axis of joint 1 (z0) is not
parallel to the axis of joint 2 (z1), i.e., a1 5 0. However, we assume z1 is parallel to the axis of joint
3 (z2), i.e., a2 = 0. The location of the system center of mass of two DOF manipulator can be
derived using n = 2 in Eq. (8) as follows:
X
2
rOC cix xi ciy yi ciz zi ; 21
i1

where the coecients are constants and can be computed inserting n = 2 into Eq. (7). The result-
ing coecients are
m1
c1x a1 b1x ; 22
M
m1
c1y b ; 23
M 1y
 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344 1337

m1 m2
c1z b1z d 2 ; 24
M M
m2
c2x a2 b2x ; 25
M
m2
c2y b ; 26
M 2y
m2
c2z b : 27
M 2z
The expression 12 krOC  rOC for two-DOF manipulator is
1 1
krOC  rOC kc21x 2c1x c2x x1  x2 2c1x c2y x1  y2 2c1x c2z x1  z2 c21y 2c1y c2x y1
2 2
 x2 2c1y c2y y1  y2 2c1y c2z y1  z2 c21z 2c1z c2x z1  x2 2c1z c2y z1  y2
2c1z c2z z1  z2 c22x c22y c22z : 28
Upon substitution of i = 2, a2 = 0 in the transformation matrix given by Eq. (1), we obtain the
angle between the axes of the local frames of two successive links 1 and 2 shown in Table 1.
Then, inserting the results from Table 1 into Eq. (28), one obtains the non-zero conguration
varying terms in 12 krOC  rOC . These terms are kc1x c2x c1y c2y cos h2 and k
c1x c2y c1y c2x sin h2 .
We add two springs to compensate for the two conguration varying terms: a spring with stiness
k1 between the axes x1 and x2 and a second spring k2 between the axes y1 and x2. The connection
points d 0i , i = 1, . . ., 4 are shown in Fig. 3. The expression for the potential energy of the two
springs and conguration varying terms remaining in the total potential energy is written as

Table 1
The angle between the axes of the local frames at links 1 and 2
x1 y1 z1
x2 cos h2 sin h2 0
y2
sin h2 cos h2 0
z2 0 0 1

Fig. 3. Spring connections for 2-link manipulator.

1338 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344

1
V r kc1x c2x c1y c2y cos h2 k
c1x c2y c1y c2x sin h2 k 1 d 02 02 0 0
1 d 2
2d 1 d 2 cos h2
2
1
k 2 d 02 02 0 0
3 d 4
2d 3 d 4 sin h2 : 29
2
The values of k1 and k2 are selected such that Eq. (29) becomes conguration invariant. The
expressions for these two stinesses are
kc1x c2x c1y c2y
k1 ; 30
d 01 d 02

k
c1x c2y c1y c2x

k2 : 31
d 03 d 04
Therefore, the two DOF spatial manipulator is completely gravity balanced by using three
springs shown in Fig. 4. These three springs are: (i) a spring with stiness k Mgd
from the center
of mass of the manipulator to a point on a line from the origin of the inertially xed frame parallel
to the gravity vector, (ii) two more springs with stinesses k1 and k2. Please note that the location
of the center of mass of the manipulator can be identied using auxiliary parallelograms based on
Eq. (21). However, the location of the center of mass has a simpler expression when described
with respect to point O1 instead of O and is given as
rO1 C rOC
rOO1 rOC
a1 x1 ; 32
where rOC was dened in Eq. (21).

3.1.1. Two DOF manipulator: special case

We obtain the conditions for gravity balancing of a 2-link spatial manipulator when the center
of mass of the links are located on xizi plane, i.e., ciy = 0 in Eq. (21). Using these simplications in
Eqs. (30) and (31), one gets

Fig. 4. 2-link gravity balanced spatial manipulator with spring connections.

 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344 1339

Fig. 5. 2-link gravity balanced spatial manipulator with spring connections: special case.

kc1x c2x
k1 ; 33
d 01 d 02

k 2 0: 34
Therefore, the 2-link spatial manipulator is gravity balanced using only two springsone from
the center of mass of the manipulator to an inertially xed point along the gravity direction pass-
ing through the origin, with stiness k Mg
d
and the second spring of stiness k1 between the axis
x1 and x2, shown in Fig. 5.

3.1.2. Prototype of two DOF manipulator

An engineering prototype based on the design explained in Section 3.1.1 was fabricated at Uni-
versity of Delaware and is shown in Fig. 6. This prototype is made of wooden parts and it has the
following DH and inertia parameters. a1 = 0.5 m, d1 = 0, a1 = p/6 rad, d2 = 0.3 m, a2 = 0,
a2 = 0.4 m, m1 = 4.188 kg and m2 = 3.903 kg. It veries the conceptual idea of spatial gravity bal-
ancing of two DOF manipulator and was tested on dierent congurations of end-eector and
also dierent orientations of the base (see http://mechsys4.me.udel.edu/movies/rehrob/spabal-
mov/). Adding auxiliary links results in some limitation for the motion of the prototype. As an
example, the second link of the manipulator cannot be fully extended because of the auxiliary
links. However, this limitation can be alleviated by changing the shape of these links. Also the
manipulator cannot be rotated fully (360) about the base because of the spring which is con-
nected to the system center of mass. This is not a problem since the usual range of the motion
for the joints are much smaller than 360.

3.2. Three DOF spatial manipulator

Consider a three DOF spatial manipulator, i.e., n = 3, as shown in Fig. 7. Here, the three joint
axes 1, 2, and 3 axes are not parallel to each other. However, we assume that joint axis 3 (z2) is
1340 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344

Fig. 6. Photographs of prototype of the two DOF spatial gravity balanced manipulator at dierent orientations of the
base.

Fig. 7. A 3-link spatial manipulator.

parallel to joint axis 4 (z3), i.e., a3 = 0. The location of the system center of mass of three DOF
manipulator can be derived using n = 3 in Eq. (8) as follows:
X
3
rOC cix xi ciy yi ciz zi ; 35
i1

where the coecients are constants and can be computed by inserting n = 3 into Eq. (7). Here, we
assume the center of mass of the links are located on xizi plane, i.e., ciy = 0 in Eq. (21). The non-
zero terms of expression 12 krOC  rOC for the three-DOF manipulator are
 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344 1341

1 1
krOC  rOC kc21x c1x c2x x1  x2 c1x c2z x1  z2 c1x c3x x1  x3 c1x c3z x1  z3 c21z
2 2
c1z c2x z1  x2 c1z c2z z1  z2 c1z c3x z1  x3 kc1z c3z z1  z3 c22x c2x c3x x2  x3
c2x c3z x2  z3 c22z c2z c3x z2  x3 c2z c3z z2  z3 c23x c23z : 36
Upon substituting i = 2, 3 and a3 = 0 in transformation matrix given by Eq. (1), we obtain the an-
gles between the dierent axes of the coordinate frames as shown in Table 2. Inserting the results
from Table 2 into the non-zero terms of Eq. (36) and noting that c3z = 0 because the center of
mass of link 3 is located on the z2x3 plane, one obtains the remaining non-zero terms to be as
kc1x c2x cos h2 kc1x c2z sin a2 sin h2 kc1x c3x x1  x3 kc1z c3x sin a2 sin h3 kc2x c3x cos h3 .
We add four springs to compensate for these ve terms: (i) a spring k1 between axis x1 and x3,
(ii) a spring k2 between x2 and x3, (iii) a spring k3 between y2 and x3, and (iv) a spring k4 between
axis x1 and x2 with connection points d 0i , i = 1, . . ., 8, respectively, as shown in Fig. 8.

Table 2
The dot products of the axes of the local coordinate frames
x1 y1 z1
x2 cos h2 sin h2 0
y2
sin h2cos a2 cos h2cos a2 sin a2
z2 sinh2sin a2
cos h2sin a2 cos a2
x2 y2 z2
x3 cos h3 sin h3 0
y3
sin h3 cos h3 0
z3 0 0 1

Fig. 8. 3-link gravity balanced spatial manipulator with springs connection.

1342 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344

The expression for the potential energy of the four springs can be written as
1

!
V k 1 k 1 b1 b2  b1 b2 ; 37
2
1
V k 2 k 2 d 02 02 0 0
3 d 4
d 3 d 4 cos h3 ; 38
2
1
V k 3 k 3 d 02 02 0 0
5 d 6
d 5 d 6 sin h3 ; 39
2
1
V k 4 k 4 d 02 02 0 0
7 d 8
d 7 d 8 cos h2 ; 40
2

!
where b1 b2 is given by

!
b1 b2
d 01 x1 d 2 z1 a2 x2 d 3 z2 d 02 x3 : 41

!
Upon substitution of b1 b2 into Eq. (37) and inserting the angles between the dierent axes from
Table 2 into the result thus obtained, one can obtain V k1 as
1 1
V k 1 k 1 d 02 2 2 2 02 0 0
1 d 2 a2 d 3 d 2 2d 2 d 3 cos a2 k 1
2d 1 a2 cos h2
2d 1 d 3 sin h2 sin a2
2 2

2d 01 d 02 x1  x3 2d 2 d 02 sin h3 sin a2 2a2 d 02 cos h3 : 42

Finally, the expression for the potential energy of the four springs and conguration varying
terms remaining in the total potential energy is written as
V r3 kc1x c2x cos h2 kc1x c2z sin a2 sin h2 kc1x c3x x1  x3 kc1z c3x sin a2 sin h3 kc2x c3x cos h3
1
C k 1
2d 01 a2 cos h2
2d 01 d 3 sin h2 sin a2
2d 01 d 02 x1  x3 2d 2 d 02 sin h3 sin a2
2
2a2 d 02 cos h3
k 2 d 03 d 04 cos h3
k 3 d 05 d 06 sin h3
k 4 d 07 d 08 cos h2 ; 43
where C is the constant. This expression can be classied in terms of variable joint angles as
V r3 kc1x c2x
k 1 d 01 a2
k 4 d 07 d 08 cos h2 kc1x c2z
k 1 d 01 d 3 sin h2 sin a2 kc1x c3x

k 1 d 01 d 02 x1  x3 kc2x c3x k 1 a2 d 02
k 2 d 03 d 04 cos h3 kc1z c3x sin a2 k 1 d 2 d 02 sin a2

k 3 d 05 d 06 sin h3 : 44
The values of ki for i = 1, . . ., 4 are derived to make the potential energy invariant with cong-
uration. The expressions for the spring stinesses are
kc c
k 1 1x 02z ; 45
d 3d 1

kc1x c3x
d 02 ; 46
k 1 d 01
kc2x c3x k 1 a2 d 02
k2 ; 47
d 03 d 04
 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344 1343

Fig. 9. Fractional mechanism to locate system center of mass.

kc1z c3x sin a2 k 1 d 02 d 2 sin a2

k3 ; 48
d 05 d 06

kc1x c2x
k 1 d 01 a2
k4 s: 49
d 07 d 08
Note that all d 0i , i = 1,. . .,8, are arbitrary except d 02 , specied by Eq. (47).
The location of the system center of mass can be realized using the following procedure: (i) lo-
cate the center of mass of the rst two links C12 using the method shown in Section 3.1; (ii) locate
the center of mass of the third link C3; (iii) locate the system center of mass C using a fractional
mechanism shown in Fig. 9. A fractional mechanism works in the following way: If the masses
m1 + m2 and m3 are located at points C12 and C3, respectively, we use two links of arbitrary
1 m2
lengths l1 and l2 connected by a revolute joint. Two auxiliary links of lengths g1 l1 m1mm 2 m3
l1
m3
and g2 l2 m1 m2 m3 l2 are attached to the parent links to form a parallelogram with revolute joints
so that all joints of the fractional mechanism are parallel to each other. g1l1 and g2l2 form a par-
allelogram and locate the system center of mass C if this mechanism is attached to the manipu-
lator at points C12 and C3 using two spherical joints. This method can be extended to include
more links within the spatial manipulator.

4. Conclusion

The paper described the underlying theory of gravity balanced for spatial robotic manipulators
through a hybrid strategy which uses springs in addition to identifying the center of mass using
parallelograms and auxiliary links. In the literature, it has been proved that springs alone cannot
gravity balance a spatial multi-degree-of-freedom mechanism unless the attachment points of the
springs are actively changed during motion of the manipulator. This paper showed that springs
with ends xed on the mechanism are sucient to gravity balance a spatial mechanism if a hybrid
method for gravity balancing is used, where the center of mass is identied rst through auxiliary
parallelograms. Also, the system remains gravity balanced even if the orientation of the base is
1344 S.K. Agrawal, A. Fattah / Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (2004) 13311344

changed, i.e., the direction of the gravity is changed with respect to the base. The method for grav-
ity compensation was illustrated by two and three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) spatial manipula-
tors. Currently, a prototype with the underlying principles of this paper is under fabrication.

Acknowledgments

The support of NIH grant # 1 RO1 HD38582-01A2 is gratefully acknowledged. The authors
acknowledge the help of Mark Deaver in the construction of the demonstration prototype.

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