Reconfigurable Robot Design Aided With Design Cards

Abstract

Abstract Reconfigurable products and systems, or more broadly transformer products and systems, change their state or morphology to perform multiple functions depending on the needs. Such systems continue to play a vital role in developing a wide range of autonomous robotic solutions in the areas of surveillance, cleaning and maintenance, and rescue. Current reconfigurable robotic systems emphasize software, control, and electrical module development, and there is a lack of design aids or suitable mechanisms resulting in reconfiguration. The main research question for this study is: How can the design of re-configurable robot development be assisted in the early stages, focusing on suitable mechanism recommendations for transformation? Prior published work on reconfigurable systems identified three main transformation principles: expand/collapse, expose/cover, fuse/divide, and twenty facilitators. However, how these underlying principles and facilitators can aid in selecting suitable mechanisms for the required reconfiguration was not addressed. We propose a set of design card mapping the facilitators and principles to aid designers with generating innovative and novel reconfigurable robots. Using the empirical method and observing the motion generated by the range of mechanisms across domains were associated with respective underlying principles and facilitators, resulting in a set of design cards. The limited-scale pilot design study is carried out in this work which poses a design problem to the participants. The proposed design card’s usefulness and limitations are established and discussed by comparing the solutions generated with and without the use of design cards.