A Hybrid Hydrostatic Transmission and Human Safe Haptic Telepresence Robot

We present a new type of hydrostatic transmission that uses a hybrid air-water configuration, analogous to N 1 cable-tendon transmissions, using N hydraulic lines and 1 pneumatic line for a system with N degrees of freedom (DOFs). The common air-filled line preloads all DOFs in the system, allowing bidirectional operation of every joint. This configuration achieves the high stiffness of a water-filled transmission with half the number of bulky hydraulic lines. We implemented this transmission using pairs of