Dynamic Interaction between Manipulator and Omni-Directional Platform

Abstract

Recent advancements in mechatronics has led to tremendous development of application of robots for industrial applications involving high health hazards, rough working conditions and difficult to reach locations. Robot assisted welding is one such high risk operation for human being. The industrial arc welding robots are either mounted on the floor, table or on overhead rails. In this scenario, the jobs to be welded are brought to shop floor. However, the on-sight joining of big pipes and structures with precision and speed, demands for mobility of welding robot. In this research work, a novel concept of mounting 5-dof welding robot on the omni-directional platform (Omni-WMR) is implemented to provides immense maneuvering mobility to the manipulator. This paper presents the combined dynamic model of omnidirectional mobile robot for welding operation to study the effect of dynamic interaction between manipulator and mobile platform. Dynamic interaction is carried out to find the variation in torque at manipulator link due to the motion of platform as well as its location on the platform. In addition, the variation in torque developed at platform wheels due to positioning the manipulator at two different locations on platform is accessed. For this, two case studies have been discussed to study the effect of dynamic interaction between manipulator and omni-directional platform.