A design procedure for conceptual design of mechanisms

Abstract

In this paper, a design procedure for conceptual design of mechanisms is presented as finally applied to robotic legs. This method is based on topological synthesis and reassembly analysis. A topological synthesis is elaborated by providing a complete atlas of each basic function element with a basic function; while a reassembly analysis is worked out to give a sufficient number of design candidates by reassembling basic function elements in a proper way. The proposed procedure provides a limited number of design candidates and it avoids a generation of unfeasible isomorphic kinematic chains, so that the process of conceptual design in terms of kinematic structure is considerably reduced both in computation time and efforts. Two examples are discussed with the aim to validate the presented approach.