Design Optimization Of Robots Research Articles

Simulation-Based Reliability Design Optimization Method for Industrial Robot Structural Design

Robots are main elements in Industry 4.0. Research on the design optimization of robots has a great significance in manufacturing industries. There inevitably exist various uncertainties in robot design that have an important influence on the reliability of robots. At present, the design optimization of robots considering the uncertainties is mainly focused on joints design and trajectory optimization. However, for the structural design of robots, deterministic design optimization still plays a leading role. In this paper, a simulation-based reliability design optimization method is proposed to improve the reliability of robots’ structural design. In the proposed method, the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS), computer simulation, response surface method (RSM) and SORA (Sequential Optimization and Reliability Assessment) algorithm are integrated to complete the structural design of the robot. Firstly, samples of the uncertainty design variables were obtained by LHS, and then, the reliability performance constraint functions were firstly constructed through the RSM in which the joint simulation of MTLAB and ANSYS was adopted. Afterwards, the reliability design optimization model was established on the basis of the probabilistic reliability theory. At last, the SORA algorithm was employed to realize the optimization. The design optimization problems of the big arm and the small arm of a 6 Kg industrial robot were considered to verify the proposed method. The results showed that the weights of the big arm and the small arm were, respectively, reduced by 7.73% and 25.70% compared with those of the original design, and the design was more effective in ensuring the reliability requirements compared with the deterministic optimization. Moreover, the results also demonstrated that the proposed method has a better computational efficiency compared with the reliability design optimization of the double-loop method.

Software for global dynamics evaluation of mechanisms

The paper deals with the multibody system software which implements the solution of the global dynamic problem for multibody systems described by redundant coordinates (DAE equations) and with a possibility of redundant number of actuators. The aim of the global dynamics evaluation is mainly the machine synthesis. The necessity of such formulation arises especially in robotics where the accessible velocities and accelerations on the given trajectory are important for the motion planning and for the design optimization of robots and manipulators. The analogical problem can be very important also for the design of any other machine type. The developed software is therefore one of the important tools for the multiobjective machine synthesis.