Analytical method for designing modular robot interfaces with high connection accuracy

Abstract

In this paper, a simple and approximate formulation to be used in the initial phase of modular interface design is presented, which relates the design parameters such as contact stiffness, geometry dimensions and dimensional tolerances to the final relative position and orientation of connected interfaces. Specifically, the concept of contact spring from former research is adopted to obtain approximate single-step solutions for over-constrained multi-DOF connection problems. The primary purpose of this method is to efficiently obtain an initial set of design parameter values, including tolerances, out of many possible choices that a designer have faced.