How Does “Intelligent Mechanical Design Concept” Help Us to Enhance Robot’s Function?

Abstract

As the study of autonomous mobile robots grows in popularity in recent years, the demand for designing simple, suitable, and reliable robot mechanics has also increased. However, a survey through literature reveals little about the mechanical design process or unified methodology to actually design proper mechanics for mobile robots. The mechanical design for the mobile robots is rather different from conventional industrial robots/manipulators used in automation of industrial process. There are limits on, among other things, the size and weight, the number and type of actuators/sensors, the power supply, the robot functions, and the constraint of environment where robots will be used. Therefore, we aim to share our experiences in the mechanical design process, especially to those new in this area. This is done through outlining the considerations and exploration new mechanical design concept, called “Intelligent Mechanical Design (IMD)”. The IMD is the concept on which the “Mecha-Telligence Principles (MTP)” and “Mecha-Telligence Methodology (MTM)” for the mechanical design of autonomous mobile robots are based. The MTM, involves seven mechanical design principles (MTP), is employed to maximize the designer’s creativity and lead to simpler, more suitable, mechanically superior solutions for complex problems. In this article we show, not only, how the MTP/MTM can be applied in design process of whole robot mechanics, but also, how they satisfy the designer perspective in investigating issues concerning what mechanism or mechanical parts are required to enhance the robot’s function. This approach is accomplished by exploring the definition of environmental niche and its related constraints which form the first-constituent principle in MTP. After defining all necessary terms, a practical mechanical design is considered to investigate the feasibility of the presented design methodology.