Glossary · Robotics
Compliance (robotics)
Also known as: Mechanical compliance, Flexibility
German: Nachgiebigkeit
In robotics, compliance is the ability of a robot, gripper or mounting element to yield elastically under external force, the inverse of stiffness. It can be passive, built into mechanical elements, or active, created by force or impedance control.
- Robotics
In one sentence
In robotics, compliance is the elastic yielding of a robot or tool under external force, the inverse of stiffness, passive or controlled.
Example
A compliance unit between the flange and the gripper lets a peg slide into a chamfered hole even when the robot position is off by half a millimeter.
How it applies
- Engineering: Passive compliance devices (remote center compliance units, spring-loaded tools) compensate small position errors in assembly. Active compliance uses Force control or Impedance control. Too much compliance reduces accuracy under load.
- Maintenance: Elastic elements wear and change their characteristics; worn compliance units are a typical cause of rising insertion failures.
- Documentation: The word compliance is ambiguous in English. The documentation team should qualify it (mechanical compliance, regulatory compliance) and map only the mechanical sense to Nachgiebigkeit in the terminology database.
Compliance vs. regulatory compliance
Mechanical compliance is a physical property. Regulatory compliance means meeting legal or normative requirements, as in Conformity assessment. The name SCARA (selective compliance assembly robot arm) uses the mechanical sense.