In this paper a procedure is developed to reduce the motor size in articulated
mechanism. In particular, the paper presents a method that allows to reduce
the peak torque requirement of a single degree of freedom mechanism, through the
use of an elastic element. Unlike other works in literature, in this works the choice
of the trajectory primitive and the resulting inertial effects are taken into account.
Both numerical and experimental results show that the inclusion of a single spring
can sensibly decrease the peak torque requirements, thus allowing a cost-effective
motor size requirement.
