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DTW: a design method for designing robot end-effectors

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Abstract

This paper proposes a method to design multifunctional robot end-effectors that consider the weight as one of the main design constraint. The motivation for this work comes from aircraft industry. This sector, traditionally characterized by manual processes, has an increasing interest in the use of commercial off-the-shelf robots for the automation of their manufacturing processes. The design method proposed in this paper, named design to weight (DTW), is based on design for excellence (DFX) methodology. In order to illustrate and validate the DTW approach, it is applied to an end-effector that shall embed a set functions related to the riveting operation of aircraft fuselage barrels. The designed end-effector is compared with similar products described in the literature or available in the market. The results show that DTW is an efficient approach that not only provides low-weight solutions but also maintains a compromise with other requirements. On the other hand, the method is sensitive to the choice of relevance and quality factors that depends on the knowledge of the design team about the product under design.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from FINEP, FAPESP, CAPES and CNPq.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ITA, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil

    Luís Fernando Ferreira Furtado, Emilia Villani, Luís Gonzaga Trabasso & Carlos Eduardo Oliveira Silva

Authors
  1. Luís Fernando Ferreira Furtado
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  2. Emilia Villani
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  3. Luís Gonzaga Trabasso
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  4. Carlos Eduardo Oliveira Silva
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luís Fernando Ferreira Furtado.

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Technical Editor: Fernando Antonio Forcellini.

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Furtado, L.F.F., Villani, E., Trabasso, L.G. et al. DTW: a design method for designing robot end-effectors. J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. 36, 871–885 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40430-013-0109-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40430-013-0109-8

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