Decision Models for Selection of Industrial Robots—A Comprehensive Comparison of Multi-Criteria Decision Making

Abstract

Due to increased demands of production capacity and higher quality requirements, industries are automating at a fast pace. Industrial robots are an important component of the industrial automation ecosystem. However, the selection of appropriate robots is a challenging task due to the sheer number of alternatives present and their varied specifications. The various characteristics or attributes of industrial robots that need due consideration before selection of an optimal robot for a given application are found to be conflicting in nature. Thus, in this paper, several multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods are deployed to select an optimal robot depending on the application. Three different industrial robot selection problems are solved in this paper by using Simple Additive Weighing (SAW), the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), the Linear Programming Technique (LINMAP), VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR), Elimination and Choice Translating Priority III (ELECTRE-III), and the Net Flow Method (NFM).

A Hybrid Group Multi-Criteria Approach Based on SAW, TOPSIS, VIKOR, and COPRAS Methods for Complex IoT Selection Problems

“…A brief presentation of the SAW, TOPSIS, COPRAS, and VIKOR advantages and disadvantages are presented in Table 2 [65][66][67][68][69]. These methods consider the same type of input data, and a solution process is generally common.…”

“…A comparison of SAW, TOPSIS, VIKOR, and COPRAS is presented in Table 3 [65][66][67][68][69]. [34], selection of IoT applications [44] Selection of IoT sensors [34,41], selection of IoT service [35,40,43], selection of IoT platform [51,52] Selection of IoT sensors [34], selecting an IoT platform in Supply Chain networks [5] Selection of IoT devices [47] Comparisons between the methods [65,68,69] [65-67,69] [65-67] [ [65][66][67][68] In [65], a comparison was made between the SAW, TOPSIS, ELECTRE, VIKOR, and COPRAS methods, considered separately, in the field of energy technology selection. It was found that changes in the weights had the greatest impact on the performance of the options.…”

Cobot selection using hybrid AHP-TOPSIS based multi-criteria decision making technique for fuel filter assembly process

“… CoCoSo SWARA Manufacturing [ 27 ] Payloads, speed, reach, mechanical weight, repeatability, cost and power consumption. CODAS, COPRAS, MEREC Industrial application [ 28 ] Economic cost, load capacity, repeatability error, top speed, kinematic structure and vertical reach, horizontal reach, memory capacity, weight and power consumption. SAW TOPSIS, VIKOR, ELECTRE III Industrial automation [ 29 ] Type of drives, memory capacity, maximum tip speed, load capacity, manipulator reach, and repeatability.…”

“…The websites and manuals of the relevant cobot manufacturers were used as secondary data sources to acquire details on the technical characteristics of the collaborative robots under consideration [ 28 ]. The data are often compiled and summarised to increase the effectiveness of research.…”

Computer-Aided Choosing of an Optimal Structural Variant of a Robot for Extracting Castings from Die Casting Machines

“…In addition, there is a contradiction between the huge number of theoretical developments describing mathematical methods for optimization [16][17][18][19][20] and their application for solving the problem under consideration. This is due to both the lack of information and/or limited access to the latest modern methods, as well as the sometimes complex mathematical apparatus and "unfriendly" user interface of software products for the robot builders.…”