Collaborative Research: Part Orienting Devices (PODs) - Novel Devices for Spatial Assembly Tasks

这一合作研究基金的研究目标是创造为空间组装任务设计新的创新设备的能力。这项研究将产生一种设计方法，以创造能够产生空间轨迹和重新定位的低自由度机器，被称为部件定向装置。这些面向零件的设备为解决可能需要机器人或多个单自由度机构的装配任务提供了替代方案。这项研究将全面解决面向零件的设备的设计，包括：(1)它们的运动学综合，(2)创建交互式计算机辅助设计工具，以及(3)用于原型、驱动和控制这些设备的指导方针和工具。这项研究的结果将是新的理论和知识，将使设计师能够为空间组装任务创造新的设备。如果成功，该项目将对设计执行自动化空间组装任务的设备的最新水平做出重大贡献。目前，随着产品沿着自动化装配线向下推进，产品及其组件零件都会被拾取、重新定位并插入到子组件或夹具中。为了降低成本，装配线设计人员试图使这些操作尽可能简单。最好是绕垂直轴或水平轴旋转，通常是90度或180度。这些任务有一套完善的有效解决方案。然而，装配任务本质上往往是三维的，这些空间装配任务需要更复杂的解决方案。此外，对对象轨迹的附加约束(例如，避免碰撞或零件网格化)进一步增加了这些任务的复杂性。存在两种主要的范例来寻找此类空间组装任务的解决方案。一端是复杂且昂贵的多自由度机器人系统，另一端是简单的单自由度装置的临时组装，如铰链和滑块。作为这项研究的结果，设计师将有另一个可行的选择，一种实现空间组装任务的全新设备类别。与现有技术相比，这些新的面向部件的设备将降低成本并提高可靠性。该项目的成功完成将为设计者提供一套新的方法、技术和工具来设计和实现这些用于空间组装任务的新的低自由度零件定向装置。

The research objective of this collaborative research grant is to create the capability to design new and innovative devices for spatial assembly tasks. The research will produce a design methodology to create low degree of freedom machines, termed part-orienting devices, capable of producing spatial trajectories and reorientations. These part-orienting devices provide an alternative for solving assembly tasks that might otherwise require a robot or multiple single degree of freedom mechanisms. This research will comprehensively address the design of part-orienting devices including: (1) their kinematic synthesis, (2) the creation of an interactive computer-aided design tool, and (3) guidelines and tools for prototyping, actuating, and controlling these devices. The result of this research will be new theories and knowledge that will enable designers to create novel devices for spatial assembly tasks.If successful, this project will result in significant contributions to the state of the art in designing devices to perform automated spatial assembly tasks. Currently, as a product advances down an automated assembly line, both the product and its component piece parts are picked-up, reoriented, and inserted into subassemblies or fixtures. To reduce costs, assembly line designers try to keep these manipulations as simple as possible. Rotations about vertical or horizontal axes are preferred, often of 90 or 180 degrees. These tasks have a well-established set of efficient solutions. However, assembly tasks are often inherently 3-dimensional in nature and these spatial assembly tasks require more complex solutions. Moreover, additional constraints on the trajectory of the object (for example, collision avoidance or part meshing) further increase the complexity of these tasks. There exist two primary paradigms to finding solutions to such spatial assembly tasks. On the one end are complex and costly multi degree of freedom robotic systems and on the other is an ad hoc assemblage of simple one degree of freedom devices such as hinges and sliders. As a result of this research, designers will have another viable option, a completely new class of devices to realize spatial assembly tasks. These new part-orienting devices will yield reduced costs and increased reliability with respect to the existing technologies. Successful completion of this project will provide designers with a set of new methodologies, techniques, and tools to design and implement these new low degree of freedom part-orienting devices for spatial assembly tasks.