Design of Modular Fault Tolerant Manipulators
Abstract:
In this paper, we deal with two important issues in relation to
modular reconfigurable manipulators, namely, the determination of the
modular assembly configuration optimally suited to perform a specific task
and the synthesis of fault tolerant systems. We present a numerical
approach yielding an assembly configuration that satisfies four kinematic
task requirements: reachability, joint limits, obstacle avoidance and
measure of isotropy. Further, because critical
missions may involve high costs if the mission were to fail due to a
failure in the manipulator system, we address the property of fault
tolerance in more detail. We prove the existence of fault tolerant
manipulators and develop an analysis tool to determine the fault tolerant
work space. We also derive design templates for spatial fault tolerant
manipulators. For general purpose manipulators two redundant
degrees-of-freedom are needed for every order of fault tolerance. However,
we show that only one degree of redundancy is sufficient for task specific
fault tolerance.
in The Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics,
eds. K. Goldberg et al., A. K. Peters, Boston, Ma, 1995.
paredis@cmu.edu