A kinetostatic index to measure the task-executing ability of robotic manipulators with limit-driven characteristics of actuators

Abstract

Dexterity is an important issue for the design, trajectory planning and control of robotic manipulators. However, even though a lot of robot manipulators are driven by DC motors, no dexterity measures were introduced to evaluate how efficient a manipulator system is for performing a required task in the case of taking the limit-driven characteristics of the DC motor into consideration. In this study, we introduce a new kinetostatic dexterity index to measure the task-executing ability of robotic manipulators where the possible maximum velocity and force of the required task are derived subject to the heat-converted power limit of the DC motor. The measure is to evaluate how efficient a manipulator system is to execute a required task, while the limit-driven characteristics of its actuators are taken into consideration. Two examples are used to show that the proposed dexterity index is task-dependent and changed due to the tasks.