Formalized design methods and component-related fundamentals for the development of fold based robots

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Burkhard Corves; Professor Dr. Tim C. Lüth
• Subject Area: Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 439938364

Due to cost pressure, the competitive situation on today's global markets and new product developments with increasing requirements, current efforts in motion technology and robotics in particular are aimed at ever more powerful manipulators and robots. The answer of the manufacturing companies is an increase in productivity. However, the resulting ever shorter cycle times and more efficient processes further increase the demands. Ultimately, this results in requirements for designs and constructions that can only be fulfilled to a limited extent by previous robot hardware with classic serial or parallel kinematic joint structures. For example, massive structural parts are required for the realization of precise serial robots in production technology, which results in greater inertia effects and the associated drop in operating speeds. However, stiffer and faster parallel robots, such as delta kinematics or hexapods, have a small working area compared to their size. The aim of this research project is therefore the systematic development as well as the development of component-related fundamentals of a new class of robots based on technically usable foldings. For this purpose, technical foldings are realized by segments with defined thickness (plate structures) and under consideration of lightweight construction methods (sandwich design, etc.). These segments have the advantage of very high axial surface moments of inertia, which results in high stiffness on the one hand and automatic lightweight construction of the robot on the other. In addition, the system-immanent property of static overdeterminacy of foldings is to be used by expecting an additional increase in stiffness compared to classical, statically determined joint structures used so far. The resulting higher accuracy of the fold-based robot makes it possible, for example, to implement high-load applications in which previous parallel kinematics have reached their limits. Due to the fact that foldable systems are always considered in connection with a changeability between compact folded and large unfolded configurations, foldable robot systems can also have larger workspaces and a more compact design compared to previous systems. Such a feature is of interest, for example, for compact medical technology tools used in minimally invasive surgery.A realization of the mentioned advantages (higher stiffness and accuracy, larger working space) as well as their task-specific application in technical motion tasks requires the development of formalized design methods and component-related fundamentals for fold-based robots that are not yet available. This is to be realized within the framework of this project.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants