Experimental development of lightweight manipulators with improved design cycle time that leverages off-the-shelf robotic arm components

Abbas, Muhammad Rzi; Ahsan, Muhammad; Iqbal, Jamshed

Abstract

The growing market for lightweight robots inspires new use-cases, such as collaborative manipulators for human-centered automation. However, widespread adoption faces obstacles due to high R&D costs and longer design cycles, although rapid advances in mechatronic engineering have effectively narrowed the design space to affordable robot components, turning the development of lightweight robots into a component selection and integration challenge. Recognizing this transformation, we demonstrate a practical framework for designing lightweight industrial manipulators using a case-study of indigenously developed 5 Degrees-of-Freedom (DOF) cobot prototype. Our framework incorporates off-the-shelf sensors, actuators, gears, and links for Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA), along with complete virtual prototyping. The design cycle time is reduced by approximately 40% at the cost of cobot real-time performance deviating within 2.5% of the target metric. Our physical prototype, having repeatability of 0.05mm calculated as per the procedure defined in ISO 9283:1998, validates the cost-effective nature of the framework for creating lightweight manipulators, benefiting robotic startups, R&D organizations, and educational institutes without access to expensive in-house fabrication setups.

Citation

Abbas, M. R., Ahsan, M., & Iqbal, J. (2024). Experimental development of lightweight manipulators with improved design cycle time that leverages off-the-shelf robotic arm components. PLoS ONE, 19(7), Article e0305379. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0305379

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 13, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Jul 18, 2024
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2024
• Deposit Date: Jun 13, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 23, 2024
• Journal: PloS one
• Print ISSN: 1932-6203
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 7
• Article Number: e0305379
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0305379
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4709057