Design and Development of Instrumented Remote Centre Compliance

Abstract

In the field of robotics and automatic assembly tooling, it is often necessary to provide some compliance when fitting two parts together or when engaging a tool with a complementarily shaped aperture. This need arises because of the tolerances in gripping and positioning capability of a robot arm and the dimensional tolerances of the members being positioned. The use of excessive force to engage two imperfectly aligned members can lead to damage to the members or assembly tooling. A remote centre compliance (RCC) is a device that can provide a compliance center projected outward from the device. Remote compliance centers decouple lateral and angular motion. A RCC device can be used in assembly to ease the insertion force. When a project compliance center is near the insertion point of a peg-in-hole type assembly, the peg translates into the hole when it strikes the outside lead-in chamfer without rotating. This translation without rotation prevents the jamming and galling seen from compliance devices that have a compliance center far away from the insertion point. The proposed work aims at designing and developing an intelligent RCC device which helps the parts assemble even if there are misalignments of known limits and is capable of capturing useful information for the assembly process.