Design and analysis of a proposed light weight three DOF planar industrial manipulator

Abstract

Minimizing the computational complexity of torque optimization and the ability to calculate the magnitude of the joint torque accurately will result in a safe operation without overloading the joint actuators. Reduced torque will lead to lighter robotic arm and easier control. The main objective of this work is to design a robotic arm with all the motors located at the base so that the arm becomes lighter than the conventional arms. The main advantage from this development is to decrease the torque required to control the arm. The motion of motors is transferred to links via aluminum pulleys, bearings, and timing belts which yields to the need of lighter motors and hence a lighter manipulator. The maximum torque of each joint has been calculated then compared with the torque needed using conventional design to show the effectiveness of the proposed design for decreasing the weight of the manipulator and minimizing driving joint torques.