SCARA Robots Developed with Modular Method

Abstract

The global competition of the market and the rapid development of robots drives the application of robots to become more and more extensive and diverse. For example, SCARA has been widely used in industries like the automotive and the electronic products. However, the traditional robot has a fixed configuration and can only be used in a specific working environment, which cannot meet the needs of modern industry for flexible production. An effective way, to meet this challenge, appears to be the development of reconfigurable robotic systems. Based on the work of predecessors and inspired by the need of flexible production and modular design idea, we developed a modular SCARA, designed according to a modular method and mainly consisting of three independent joint modules, in series. This paper briefly introduces the principle of modularization design, the design process of each module, the control system and the configuration changes of a modular SCARA. The experimental results show that modular SCARA, with different configurations, can be easily constructed to adapt to different working environments, by following a modular design method, which is an important evolution step in the field of SCARA.