KINEMATIC DESIGN OF SERIAL LINK MANIPULATORS FROM TASK SPECIFICATIONS

The Reconfigurable Modular Manipulator System (RMMS) consists of modul ar links and joints that can be assembled into many manipulator config urations. This capability allows the RMMS to be rapidly reconfigured t o custom tailor it to specific tasks. An important issue related to th e RMMS is the determination of the optimal manipulator configuration f or a specific task. This article addresses the problem of mapping kine matic task specifications into a kinematic manipulator configuration. For the design of two-degrees-of-freedom (2-DOF) planar manipulators, an analytical solution is derived. Because analytical solutions become impractical for problems with more than two design parameters, we hav e also developed a numerical approach for the design of 6-DOF manipula tors. The numerical procedure determines the Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) parameters of a nonredundant manipulator with joint limits that can re ach a set of specified positions/orientations in an environment that m ay include parallelepiped-shaped obstacles. Finally, this approach is demonstrated with a three-dimensional example for a 6-DOF manipulator.