Configuration optimization, path planning and control of serial modular and reconfigurable robots

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Visionary Manufacturing Challenges for 2020 by the USA National Research Council points out that among all priority technology areas in manufacturing "reconfigurable and adaptable systems" are most important. There exist several manufacturing approaches aimed at increasing production flexibility, such as lean manufacturing, and just-in-time production. In the field of robotics, recent efforts exploit modular and reconfigurable robots (MRRs) for the purpose of enabling manufacturing flexibility. Moreover, in recent years, several manufacturing tools suppliers began to offer MRR-based solutions for design of versatile facilities that offer improved dexterity over task-specific hardware for automation. This need for MRRs will continue to grow in order to meet the projected demand for adaptable manufacturing systems in upcoming years. Therefore, the applicant's research program will focus on advancing motion planning and control methodologies of MRR to facilitate wider scale use of those systems in advanced manufacturing applications. First, the research program will focus on developing intelligent path planning methods to solve the Inverse Kinematics (IK) problem for MRRs. By incorporating adaptive niching methods, the proposed approach will be able to find multiple solutions of the IK problem for configurations that have no closed form analytical solution. Secondly, the program will target the development of configuration-independent robust control methods for MRRs. Finally, the research program will focus on development of configuration optimization strategies for MRRs that utilize novel GA-based task-based algorithms. The proposed algorithms will utilize the multi-solution IK solver developed by the applicant during the research program to identify the most suitable MRR configuration for a given task. Through the successful execution of the aforementioned milestones, this research program will enable the utilization of MRRs in a wide variety of manufacturing applications.