Computational Design of 3D-Printable Compliant Mechanisms with Bio-Inspired Sliding Joints

We propose a computational approach for designing fully-integrated compliant mechanisms with bio-inspired joints that are stabilized and actuated by elastic elements. Similar to human knees or finger phalanges, our mechanisms leverage sliding between pairs of contacting surfaces to generate complex motions. Due to the vast design space, however, finding surface shapes that lead to ideal approximations of given target motions is a challenging and time-consuming task. To assist users in this process, our computational design tool combines forward and inverse simulation strategies that allow for guided and automated exploration of the parameter space. We demonstrate the potential of our method on a set of compliant mechanism with different joint geometries and validate our simulation results on 3D-printed prototypes.