Title: A design procedure for conceptual design of mechanisms

Authors: Tao Li; Marco Ceccarelli

Addresses: Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Changwu Road 801, 213164, Changzhou (Jiangsu), China ' LARM: Laboratory of Robotics and Mechatronics, University of Cassino and South Latium, Via Di Biasio 43, 03043 Cassino (Fr), Italy

Abstract: In this paper, a design procedure for conceptual design of mechanisms is presented as finally applied to robotic legs. This method is based on topological synthesis and reassembly analysis. A topological synthesis is elaborated by providing a complete atlas of each basic function element with a basic function; while a reassembly analysis is worked out to give a sufficient number of design candidates by reassembling basic function elements in a proper way. The proposed procedure provides a limited number of design candidates and it avoids a generation of unfeasible isomorphic kinematic chains, so that the process of conceptual design in terms of kinematic structure is considerably reduced both in computation time and efforts. Two examples are discussed with the aim to validate the presented approach.

Keywords: design process; conceptual design; mechanism design; topological synthesis; reassembly analysis; leg mechanism; suspension mechanism; robot legs; kinematic structure; robot kinematics; legged locomotion; walking robots.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMRS.2013.057177

International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, 2013 Vol.1 No.2/3, pp.136 - 151

Received: 29 Nov 2012
Accepted: 05 Apr 2013
Published online: 12 Jul 2014 *

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