Development and Robustness Characterization of a Digital Material Assembly System

摘要

Digital material structures are lattices composed of discrete elements that are connected to create assemblies that can exhibit high performance mechanical characteristics. This paper presents the development and robustness characterization of a system, called Gantry Autonomous Robotic Integrator (GARI), which is designed to automatically assemble these structures. The relative positioning tolerance for connecting elements and methods to increase the reliability of automated assembly of these structures are specifically described. A compact end-effector design is presented, which shows high precision and adjustability, and calibration procedures for the build plate are defined. The bolting reliability for this end-effector is analyzed to identify tolerance requirements and establish performance benchmarks for component feed stations. Two extremal cases to test the bolting reliability of the end-effector are explored, one case with a well-constrained target voxel and the other case with a minimally constrained target voxel. The resulting bolting success tolerance maps are described, which indicate greater than 95% successful bolting probability within 0.254 mm in all directions from nominal target placement.