High performance loading robot design for a tool-delivery system

Abstract

A concept of an ultrafast distributed material transfer system based upon linear induction motors (LIM) has been proposed in which vehicles can travel at velocities of up to 120 km/h. Performance and economic analysis of a high-speed tool-delivery system based on such a system has shown that the robot manipulator that loads and unloads the vehicles is the bottleneck. This paper presents a method to design a high-speed robot with cycle times comparable with the LIM material transfer system. A generic design methodology is developed for robot manipulators that integrates several key design issues such as kinematics, dynamics, structural mechanics, actuator sizing, assessing robustness to parameters and sensor errors, and vibration analysis. The methodology is computationally efficient and has been implemented using MATLAB for evaluating a number of 'rough-cut' feasible designs for the high-speed robot. A highly distributed architecture and distributed protocols are proposed for integrating the high-speed robot and the high-speed material transfer system.