I-Objectives:

To present a comprehensive study of performance indices related to the robotic mechanical systems behavior with regard to force and motion transmission, modeling and design of parallel manipulators, flexible manipulators, calibration and optimization of robotic mechanical systems.

II-Course outline:

•  Manipulator performance evaluation and optimization (3 weeks)
• 1. rigid body mechanics
• 2. screw Jacobian matrix
• 3. kinematic performances indices
• 4. isotropic design of serial manipulators
• Kinematics, dynamics and design of parallel manipulators (4 weeks)
• introduction to parallel manipulators
• kinematics of parallel manipulators
• dynamics of parallel manipulators
• design of parallel manipulators
• Kinematic calibration and dynamic calibration (load and link inertia estimation) of robotic mechanical systems (2.5weeks)
• kinematic calibration
• load inertia parameter estimation
• link inertia parameter estimation
• Kinematics and dynamics of flexible manipulators (2.5 weeks)
• joint flexibility
• link flexibility
• discretisation of the flexible links
1. assumed made method
2. cubic spline method
3. finite element method
• equations of motion of a flexible link manipulator
• Optimal design of robotic manipulators (2 weeks)

IV-Bibliography:

Reading assignments will be based on the papers and frequent reference will be made to the following references:

• J. Angeles, Fundamental of Robotic Mechanical Systems, Springer, 1997.
• J. Pierre-Merlet, Parallel Robots, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.

1. Asada H., and Slotine J.J., Robot Analysis and Control, Wiley Interscience, 1986.
2. Craig, J.J., Introduction to Robotics: Mechanics and Control, Addison Wesley, 1989.
3. Fu, K., Gonzalez R., and Lee, C.S.G, Robotics: Control, Sensing, Vision, and Intelligence,   McGraw-Hill, 1987.
4. Nakamura, Y., Advanced Robotics: Redundancy and Optimization, Addison Wesley, 1991.
5. Paul, R.P., Robot Manipulator: Mathematics, Programming and Control, MIT Press, 1981.
6. Spong, M.W. and Vidyasagar, M.M., Robot Dynamics and control, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1989.
7. Strang, G., Linear Algebra and Its Applications, Third Edition, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1988.
8. Tsai, L.W., Robot Analysis, The Mechanics of Serial and Parallel Manipulators, John Wiley &  Sons, Inc., 1999.

1. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation.
2. International Journal of Robotics Research. (MIT Press)
3. ASME Journal of Dynamics Systems, Measurements, and Control.
4. ASME Journal of Mechanical Design.
5. ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics.
6. Mechanism and Machine Theory.
7. Journal of Robotic Systems.8. Robotica.