This chapter presents the design and development of a lightweight single-link planar constrained flexible manipulator. The design process involves selection of material types in respect of physical properties, selection of sensing and actuation types suitable for the system, interface mechanism, and hardware and software requirements. A number of key practical issues arising in the design process are highlighted and resolved. These include the actuator motor gearing mechanism and interference of power line with sensing data. The final design includes an aluminium type single-link manipulator driven by a printed circuit armature type permanent magnet DC motor. The sensing types include a shaft encoder and tachometer at the hub, an accelerometer at the end-point and a set of strain gauges along the manipulator arm. The manipulator thus designed and developed is featured throughout the book and used in case study exercising for demonstrating and verifying the various modelling and control design approaches presented in various chapters of the book.

Chapter Contents:

• 2.1 Introduction
• 2.2 Manipulator design procedure
• 2.2.1 Strength and stiffness of a flexible manipulator
• 2.2.2 Safety factor
• 2.2.3 Summary of a flexible manipulator strength design
• 2.3 Transducers and instrumentation
• 2.3.1 Drive actuator
• 2.3.2 Selection of motor and gear ratio
• 2.3.2.1 Manipulator motion behaviour
• 2.3.2.2 Solution for motor and gear ratio
• 2.3.2.3 Advantages and disadvantages of gearing system
• 2.3.2.4 Joint friction
• 2.3.3 Drive amplifier
• 2.3.4 Joint angle sensor and signal conditioning
• 2.3.5 Joint velocity sensor and amplifier
• 2.3.6 Strain gauge and amplifier
• 2.3.7 Measurement of hub inertia
• 2.3.8 Accelerometer and amplifier
• 2.4 Problems and findings
• 2.4.1 Noise/interference
• 2.4.2 Gearbox
• 2.4.3 Torque measurement
• 2.5 Computer, interfacing and software
• 2.5.1 RTI-815 board
• 2.5.2 A/D TRAM: adt102
• 2.5.3 D/A TRAM: dat202
• 2.6 Summary

Inspec keywords: permanent magnet motors; flexible manipulators; DC motors; actuators; printed circuit motors

Other keywords: strain gauges; aluminium type single-link manipulator; tachometer; shaft encoder; flexible manipulator experimental system; printed circuit armature type permanent magnet DC motor; planar constrained manipulator; actuator motor gearing mechanism; accelerometer; power line interference; lightweight flexible manipulator

Subjects: Actuating and final control devices; Manipulators