Design guidelines for shoulder design of an anthropomorphic robotic arm
Year: 2017
Editor: Anja Maier, Stanko Škec, Harrison Kim, Michael Kokkolaras, Josef Oehmen, Georges Fadel, Filippo Salustri, Mike Van der Loos
Author: Leroux, Martin; Achiche, Sofiane; Beaini, Dominique; Raison, Maxime
Series: ICED
Institution: École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada
Section: Design Methods and Tools
Page(s): 041-050
ISBN: 978-1-904670-92-6
ISSN: 2220-4342
Abstract
The development of biomechanically-accurate robotic arms is of high interest; in this paper we investigate an actuated spherical mechanism for biofidelic shoulder design. Given the high inertia of an extended arm, serial mechanisms were quickly discarded in favour of a parallel design. One particular design, the agile eye, was studied in depth due to multiple intrinsic advantages. However, no work was done regarding its capacities with higher inertia loads. Our objective is to characterise the behaviour of the agile eye in terms of speed, precision and input efforts when there is a load on the end effector. We developed the dynamic model of the robot to implement torque control with a PD controller. The system was then simulated for a few point to point trajectory conditions. The characterisation of the behaviour of the robot with a load on its end effector revealed that it reaches similar precision, with slightly slower speed depending on design choices but requires motors with power proportional to the expected load in comparison to when there is no mass on the end effector. These results can serve as design guidelines for anthropomorphic robotic arm/shoulder development.
Keywords: Mechatronics, Bio-inspired design / biomimetics, Biomedical design, Adaptation robotics