S. Tosunoglu et V. Monteverde, KINEMATIC AND STRUCTURAL DESIGN ASSESSMENT OF FAULT-TOLERANT MANIPULATORS, Intelligent automation and soft computing, 4(3), 1998, pp. 261-268
Fault tolerance technology promises higher system reliability even und
er unexpected component failure. Such capability is attained by develo
ping a structural system design that can deliver fault tolerance, and
by designing controllers that can take advantage of the fault-tolerant
structure. This paper reviews fault-tolerant design issues from a kin
ematic and structural viewpoint. This is accomplished by studying the
kinematic design of a fault-tolerant robotic system at four levels: (1
) Joint level (Single and dual actuators); (2) Link level (Serial and
parallel modules); (3) Sub-system level (Non-redundant and redundant m
anipulators); (4) System level (Multiple cooperating manipulators). Th
is work addresses the four levels from a structural design viewpoint A
measure is developed to determine the relative fault-tolerant capacit
y gained from one manipulator to another. Other criteria are also revi
ewed in evaluating various manipulators as design alternatives in an e
ffort to identify the most efficient structural modifications to enhan
ce fault tolerance of a robot.