Optimal design of robots

Abstract

Abstract-Synthesis of robots may be decomposed into two processes: structural synthesis (determine the general arrangement of the mechanical structure such as the type and number of joints and the way they will be connected) and dimensional synthesis (determine the length of the links, the axis and location of the joints, the necessary maximal joint forces/torques,. . .). The performances that may be obtained for a robot are drastically dependent on both synthesis. Although for serial robots general trends may be derived only from the structure a realistic comparison between two different structures may only be made after a careful dimensional synthesis and this is even more so for closed-loop robot (such as parallel robots).We will present a dimensional synthesis approach based on the design requirements that allows one to obtain almost all feasible design solutions that are guaranteed to satisfy the requirements, even taking into account manufacturing tolerances. Practical examples of 6-DOF robot design will be presented.

Asymptotically Optimal Design of Piecewise Cylindrical Robots using Motion Planning

“…Approaches have optimized various metrics and have used genetic algorithms [6,16,19,30], interval analysis [21], geometric methods [32], and gridbased methods [25]. These methods typically lack theoretical performance guarantees or achieve computational tractability by imposing significant assumptions on the robot's workspace and by using simplified kinematic models, which limit the effectiveness and applicability of the optimization procedure.…”

Task-oriented design of concentric tube robots using mechanics-based models

“…A sampling-based approach was applied to optimizing the base location of a robot manipulator [9], but this approach requires an initial collision-free plan. Merlet used interval analysis to find robot designs which fulfill a set of requirements [19]. Methods such as Synergy [11] and Darwin2k [14] rely on genetic algorithms to perform multiple simulations to optimize the structure of a robot for various metrics.…”

Synthesis of Spatial RPRP Closed Linkages for a Given Screw System

“…Dimensional synthesis examples exist, mainly for optimizing performance indices [4], [5], [6] or for reachable workspace sizing [7], [8], [9]; see also [10] for a comprehensive approach.…”