Robot Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Illustrated - Profe Saul

286 Chapter 11 Proprioceptive and Environmental Sensing Mechanisms and Devices
Figure 11-16 Horizontal
oose footed leaf spring
The leaf spring can also be used to suspend a robot’s bumper quite
effectively by turning the spring on its side and attaching the center to
the chassis and each end to points on the bumper. One end, or both, still
needs to be attached through a slot or pivoting link, but the result is still
very simple and robust. This layout can be used on larger robots also,
since the leaf spring is an efficient suspension element even in larger
sizes.
For robots that must detect bumps from the rear, it may be possible to
use a single spring to support an entire wrap around bumper. If this
would produce a cumbersum or overly large spring, the sideways-leaf
spring layout can be enhanced by adding a second spring to further support
the rear of a one-piece wrap around bumper. Figure 11-16 shows a
single slot sideways leaf spring layout.
Sliding Front Pivot
Designing a bumper suspension system based on the fact that the bumper
needs primarily to absorb and detect bumps from the front produces a
system which moves easily and farthest in the fore-and-aft directions,
but pivots around some point in the front to allow the sides to move
some. The system could be called a sliding front-pivot bumper suspension
system (Figure 11-17). Sliding joints are more difficult to engineer
than pivoting or rotating joints, but this concept does allow large motions