The variable-stiffness joint (VSJ) plays an important role in creating compliant and powerful motions. This paper presents a novel wire-driven VSJ based on a permanent magnetic mechanism (PMM). The proposed joint regulates the joint stiffness with lower energy consumption through a wide range via the permanent magnetic mechanism. This effect possibly depends on the novel nonlinear combination of a permanent magnet-spring and wire-driven system that achieves the same stiffness with lower wire tension. A trapezoidal layout of the joint is proposed. Because of the relationship among the stiffness, the position of the joint and the stiffness of the PMM, the stiffness model is also been established. Based on this model, the decoupling controller is built to independently control the position and stiffness of the joint. Experiments show that the VSJPMM achieves position and stiffness independently and also reduces energy and power required to regulate the stiffness compared with the traditional approach. In addition, the proposed mechanism displays a powerful motion and short stiffness adjustment time.

Micro-positioning platform plays an important role in the field of precision positioning such as microelectronics, robotics and biomedicine. This paper proposes an equal-stiffness and equal-stroke 2D micro-positioning platform, which is driven by piezoelectric actuators. The overall structure of the 2D micro-positioning platform adopts a nested structure and the displacement magnification mechanism adopts two hourglass displacement magnification mechanisms. The displacement magnification ratio of the hourglass displacement magnification mechanism was studied, and its structural parameters were optimized. Static stiffness analysis and simulation analysis of the micro-positioning platform were carried out. The simulation stiffness of the micro-positioning platform in the XY direction is 46873 N/m and 46832 N/m respectively. The experimental prototype of the micro-positioning platform was built. Through the measurement experiment with the prototype, the maximum stroke of the micro-positioning platform in the XY direction is 489 μm and 493 μm respectively; the maximum coupling ratio in the XY direction is 2.38% and 2.70% respectively. The research indicates that the micro-positioning platform had the characteristics of small size, equal long stroke, equal stiffness and low coupling ratio in the XY direction.