Mechanical design for assembly of a 4-DOF robotic arm utilizing a top-down concept

Abstract

Summary This paper proposes an effective top-down design approach for the mechanical design for assembly of a four degree-offreedom revolute jointed robotic arm. The design process begins by specifying top-level design criteria and passing down these criteria from the top level of the manipulator’s structure to all of the subsequent components. With this proposed approach, the sequential design intents are captured, organized and implemented based on the entire system’s objectives, as opposed to the conventional design process which aims at individual components’ optimization. By considering the mechanical arm’s performance objectives, the design starts with modeling the integration of all the individual links constituting the manipulator. During the design process, modifications are made based on the integrated information of kinematics, dynamics, and structural analyses of the desired robot configurations as a whole. An optimum assembly design is then achieved with workable subdesigns of the manipulator components. As a result, the proposed approach for manipulator design yields substantially less number of iterations, automatic propagation of design changes, and great saving of design efforts. Thus, it is suitable and can be used as a guideline for design automation purposes of complex systems such as robotic arms.