Experimental verification of the advantages of a modular open chain metamorphic manipulator

Abstract

The metamorphic manipulator is a class of robots that would present a higher kinematic task execution performance than fixed anatomy or modular reconfigurable robots. It's main advantage is the capability of rapidly matching its anatomy to a given task via the metamorphosis of a single structure. In this paper it is determined experimentally whether indeed a metamorphic robot, could achieve different anatomies within a given structure that would present the best possible kinematic performance for a kinematic task, and this improved performance in terms of task execution time and end effector velocity is measured. An experimental setup is built with a 3 d.o.f. manipulator and a 3D accelerometer mounted on the end effector, to measure the acceleration during tsk execution which is then integrated to provide the end effector velocities. These velocities are then compared for the manipulator's reference anatomy and best derived anatomy for the given task to compare the kinematic performance of the two anatomies.