A robot typically consists of three basic parts: main body, drive system and control system. The main body is the base, including the arm, the wrist and the hand, and may sometimes include the walking mechanism; the drive system includes a power unit and a transmission mechanism for the actuator to generate corresponding actions; the control system gives command and controls the drive system/actuator based on the input program. Robots can handle works that humans are unable or unwilling to do, especially in harsh, dangerous, and extreme working environments. Nowadays robots are widely used in industrial areas, for example, automotive manufacturing, welding, painting, collection and placement, product inspection and testing, and assembly. In addition, using robots to substitute human labour in industry also has advantages: it has larger production output, the operation is more reliable, the precision is higher, the product quality is more stable, and it saves manpower and materials so as to reduce production costs. When there is a need to improve production, it can be easily achieved by increasing working hours of the robots rather than adding manpower. Robots have now become one of the main driving forces for economy.

The robotic arm designed in this paper mimics the motion of a human arm, and can be potentially use in situations where picking up plastic debris from the conveyor belt, and placing it into the corresponding sorting container. The rotational robotic arm designed in this paper has a waist, a shoulder, an elbow, a wrist and a roll. The robot is equipped with sensors that can identify the types of plastic so as to place the trash into the right container.

In this paper, a rotational robotic arm is designed, modelled and optimized. The 3D model design and optimization are conducted by using SolidWorks. Forward kinematics are derived so as to determine the position vector of the end effector with respect to the base, and subsequently being able to calculate the angular velocity and torque of each joint. For the goal positioning problem, the PD control law is typically used in industry. It is employed in this application by using virtual torsional springs and frictions to generate the torques and to keep the system stable.

This paper designed and modelled a new rotational robotic arm. The kinematics and dynamics are presented along with the motion simulation. With the advancement of the artificial intelligence, robots play an important role as the main carrier of AI. At present, robots applied in various fields need to have more flexibility. The combination of using CAD software such as SolidWorks and Matlab/Simulink with AI to design and control robots, which have complex structure and motion, could be an effective approach.


Design, Modelling and Simulation of a Rotational Robotic Arm

Division / Sponsors: 
Aerospace, Bioengineering, Applied Mechanics, Design Engineering Division, Advanced Energy Systems, Manufacturing Engineering Division, Noise Control and Acoustics, Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Prognosis (NDPD), Nuclear Engineering Division, Process Industries Division, Fluids Engineering, Heat Transfer, Materials, Microelectromechanical Systems, Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis, Computers & Information in Engineering


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2020/volume/84478

IMECE2020 - Virtual Conference

Supporting the need among researchers worldwide for additional online and multimedia content, ASME now offers the ASME Conference Video Collection. This platform will collect and provide long-term access to conference presentation videos, encompassing all technology areas within ASME's technical conference and events program. About 30,000-40,000 engineers across all mechanical engineering and related disciplines participate in ASME conferences each year. This includes authors of approximately 6,000 to 8,000 technical papers published by ASME, the majority of whom also submit video presentations for our virtual conferences. The video collection will be available as an add-on to existing product packages or as a separate subscription.