In this paper, we study the differential kinematics and the kineto-static manipulability indices of multiple cooperating robot arms, including active and passive joints. The kinematic manipulability indices are derived extending previous results on cooperating robots without passive joints. The force manipulability analysis for cooperative robot systems cannot be straightforwardly derived by “d...

This paper describes the mechanical configuration of a quadruped robot firstly. Each of the four legs consists of three rotary joints. All joints of the robot are actuated by linear hydraulic servo cylinders. Then it deduces the forward and inverse kinematic equations for four legs with D-H transformation matrices. Furthermore, it gives a composite foot trajectory composed of cubic curve and st...

This paper presents a novel design for a mobile robot based on the kinematics of parallel mechanisms. The robot consists of 3 legs, each equipped with an asynchronous driving unit. The legs are connected to the driving units with spherical joints and to the upper plate with a revolute joint. Three additional encoders, attached to the upper revolute joints provide redundant data. This data is us...

this paper focuses on the effects of closed- control on the calculation of the dynamic load carrying capacity (dlcc) for mobile-base flexible-link manipulators. in previously proposed methods in the literature of dlcc calculation in flexible robots, an open-loop control scheme is assumed, whereas in reality, robot control is achieved via closed loop approaches which could render the calculated ...

Packaging products such as telephones and two-way radios after assembly is a common manufacturing task. Carton folding is a packaging operation performed by human operators or with fixed automation. We present a flexible method to fold cardboard cartons using fixtures; a carton blank is folded by moving it through a fixture with a robot. This method of using interchangeable fixtures enables rap...

Serpentine robots are slender, multi-segmented vehicles designed to provide greater mobility than conventional wheeled or tracked robots. Serpentine robots are thus ideally suited for urban search and rescue, military intelligence gathering, and for surveillance and inspection tasks in hazardous and hard-to-reach environments. One such serpentine robot, developed at the University of Michigan, ...

This paper presents the design and implementation of a new modular self-reconfigurable robot. The single module has three joints and can perform rectilinear motion, lateral shift, lateral rolling, and rotation. A flexible pin-hole-based docking mechanism is designed for self-assembly. With the proposed infrared-sensor-based docking method, multiple modules can be self-assembled to form versatil...

Novel actuator principles such as flexible fluidic actuators allow for the development of lightweight artificial hands. Improvements are the compact realisation of a large number of articulations without exceeding the size of human hands. This progress closes the gap between simple grippers and highly sophisticated robot hands for teleoperation. Applications are prosthetic hands as well as huma...