  The paper focuses on the stiffness modeling of robotic manipulators with
gravity compensators. The main attention is paid to the development of the
stiffness model of a spring-based compensator located between sequential links
of a serial structure. The derived model allows us to describe the compensator
as an equivalent non-linear virtual spring integrated in the corresponding
actuated joint. The obtained results have been efficiently applied to the
stiffness modeling of a heavy industrial robot of the Kuka family.
