Reliability and quality improvement of robotic manipulation systems

摘要

This paper reports the procedure of experimental evaluation and objective/quantitative comparison, among different performance parameters, of the Cartesian (3P) robots. Here, first by implementing the equations of motion, the mechanical model of this type of robot is simulated using Working Model software. Next, the initial model of robot is designed based on the results concluded from the simulated model and the robot structure including control unit, mechanical elements and operating procedure is described. Also, some tests are applied on the prototype robot in order to verify the analytical side of design procedure. The experiments consist of calibrating the robot motion along all three axes (prismatic joints) and validation of three performance indices, which are easy to measure via simple experimentations namely accuracy, repeatability and maximum allowable load carrying capacity. The acceptable values of the indices are predefined as input of design process. The data derived from the experimental tests showed that the robot satisfies the acceptable values. The main contribution of this paper is to improve the robot design by exerting the changes obtained from assessment of some defined statistical and mechanical indices.