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International Journal of Robotics and Automation Technology

Articles

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2014)

Weight Reduction: A Typical Issue in the Mechanical Design of Robotic Systems

DOI
https://doi.org/10.15377/2409-9694.2014.01.01.4
Submitted
March 10, 2014
Published
10.03.2014

Abstract

This paper illustrates the importance of weight reduction in the mechanical design of robotic systems. Safety and power consumption are the important aspects that deal with the reduction of robot weight for practical applications in the human being environment. A novel approach has been assumed in order to avoid these problems keeping the lightweight of the structure. The weight reduction of the mechanical structure helps to obtain final solutions with feasible characteristics of compactness, robustness and stiffness. These ideas will be explained via several examples. The design process of a new arm has been reported from the study of the mechanical details of a built prototype that presents unsuitable weight. Toques of actuating joints have been checked, at the end of the design process, by developing dynamic simulations of robot operations in order to validate the proposed approach.

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