US Patent Issued to NUtech Ventures on Aug. 11 for "Variable-stiffness mechanism" (Nebraska Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,703,084, issued on Aug. 11, was assigned to NUtech Ventures (Lincoln, Neb.).

"Variable-stiffness mechanism" was invented by Carl Nelson (Lincoln, Neb.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A variable-stiffness mechanism may include racks, pinion gears, spring elements, a cable, and a pulley. The variable-stiffness mechanism may be based on a variable-lever principal using the racks as a lever and the pinion gears as a variable pivot point. The pinion gears may be fixed in position relative to the pulley and coupled together by a gear-to-gear mesh. Alternatively, the pinion gears may be configured to translate relative to the pulley using a cent...