This paper proposed a novel concept of active balancer for dynamic balancing of planar mechanisms. Somewhat similar to a vibration absorber, the active balancer is designed as an independent device, which is placed outside of the mechanism to be balanced and can be installed easily. It consists of a two degree-of-freedom (DOF) linkage with two input shafts, one of which is connected to the output shaft of the mechanism to be balanced by a joint coupling, and the other one is driven by a controllable motor. Flexible dynamic balancing adapted to different working conditions can be achieved by varying speed trajectories of the control motor actively. A design method is developed for selecting suitable speed trajectories and link parameters of the two DOF linkage of the balancer to meet various design requirements and constraints. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the design procedure and to verify the feasibility of the proposed concept.
Dynamic balancing of planar mechanisms using toric geometry