Purpose: Conceptual design of a robot for a manufacturing task.
Reason: This will help the student realize why different robots are chosen for different tasks.
Method: The assignment is to be done in teams of 4 students.
Problem: Each group will design a robot for a task, as described below. This will include analysis of the task requirements including AT LEAST, degrees of freedom, workspace, actuators, sensors, kinematics, path planning, and programming. The final design should include a clear and concise report between 5 to 10 written pages in length, describing in detail the design decisions. This report should also have drawings, or good quality hand sketches of the basic robot configuration.
(The various topics can be signed for by students on the board by S49)
1. assembly of car body panels on an automotive assembly line.
2. assembly of beams in the new space station, in orbit.
3. removal of injection molded parts from an open die.
4. mixing of radioactive solutions in test tubes.
5. an automatic CD changer in a juke box.
6. for the insertion of glass for car windshields.
7. to pack flourescent light tubes in shipping cartons.
8. to point and fire a weapon for destruction of incoming missiles.
11. for delivering mail in an office.
12. to perform house painting.
13. for cleaning office windows on high rise buildings.
14. a robot that it used to test car doors by repeatedly opening and closing them.
15. a robot to crawl through sewer systems and look for blockages.
16. a robot that is inserted into the body to perform surgery.
17. a robot that is capable of writing like a human.
19. a robot that can “wiggle it’s nose” for Walt Disney.
20. a robot for building ships in bottles.
Evaluation: Marks will be awarded on the basis of completeness of the design, and suitability of the robot to the assigned task. Marks will be deducted for unclear, vague reports and drawings.
Purpose: To do detailed design/analysis of the robot concept designed in Assignment #1.
Reason: To ensure that the shortings of the design are revealed (and overcome if possible), and that the various technologies involved are explored at a professional level.
Method: Each of the four team members that cooperated on the first assignment will now select and do 1 of the four problems below. These are to be individually labelled so that individual marks can be assigned. Note: sections that are not done individually will simply not be marked.
1. Do a kinematic analysis of the robot including, the forward/inverse kinematics, the workspace boundaries, singularities, and the jacobian. The kinematic analysis should be done with both simple homogenous transforms and the Denavit-Hartenberg to verify the results.
2. Develop a flowchart of the actions that must occur for the robot. Associate these to the sensors, and actuators of the robot. Develop a control program using either a PLC, or AML. If necessary, you may add new commands to assist you, as long as they are very clearly defined.
3. An analysis of the robot to find the accuracy, repeatability and spatial resolution must be done based on the sensors selected, actuators chosen, flexibility of joints, payload, maximum velocities, etc.
4. The end of arm tooling must either be fully designed, including drawings, or commercially selected with alternatives, and costs. In both cases the suitability of the design should be verified using suitable engineering calculations.