Colloquium aankondiging

Faculteit Engineering Technology

Afdeling Design, Production and Management
Master opleiding Mechanical Engineering

In het kader van zijn/haar doctoraalopdracht zal

Desai, A.G. (Abhijit)

een voordracht houden getiteld:

Design of robotic gripper using design space exploration tool

Datum12-04-2021
Tijd13:30
ZaalMicrosoft Teams

Samenvatting

Industry 4.0 has revolutionized the manufacturing industry, with the inclusion of IoT (internet of things) devices, sensors, and big data has led to the development of smart factories where robots will play a significant role in manufacturing automation. Collaborative robots (Cobot) are a type of robot that is designed to work along with humans in close proximity.  In robotics, grippers are  a type of end effector present at the end of the arm designed to grasp and manipulate the objects. The design of a robotic gripper is a complex task as it involves the design of multiple components that are housed in a small casing.

Generally, the designer tends to follow the point-based design process where one design solution is created and optimized till the best-suited design is found, it is an iterative process. An alternative to point-based design is a set-based design where a set of solutions are generated and gradually narrowed to a solution that satisfies all the requirements. Thus, eliminating the iterative process. A new Design Space Exploration Tool (DSET) has been developed at the University of Twente which works on the principles of Computational Design Synthesis and set-based design. The tool automates the synthesis process by generating multiple design solutions for a given design problem which can be explored in the design space.

This thesis studies applicability of DSET in designing complex products by considering robotic gripper as a use case. First, the knowledge related to the robotic grippers is acquired and the components that constitute the gripper are determined. The mechanical design for individual components of the robotic gripper is derived and modelled in DSET to create a knowledge base. By using this knowledge base four different robotic gripper configurations are obtained. Further to evaluate the knowledge base two test cases were created. The first test case was selected from literature and the second test case was selected from a robotic gripper manufacturer.

For the first test case, the developed knowledge base was capable to reproduce the simplified version of an existing design. In the second test case, design solutions with different configurations were obtained for different scenarios and the performances of designs were compared to that of the existing design from a robotic gripper manufacturer. With the outcome of these test cases, the capability of the tool in designing a complex product is evaluated. In the end, the developed knowledge base for robotic gripper in DSET could generate multiple complex design solutions in a short amount of time.