Concurrent synthesis of robot manipulators using Hardware-in-the-loop Simulation

This paper discusses a practical approach to the concurrent synthesis of robot manipulators, which is based on the alternative design methodology of Linguistic Mechatronics (LM) as well as the utilization of a modular Robotic Hardware-in-the-loop Simulation (RHILS) platform. The RHILS platform involves physical joint modules and the control unit to reduce modeling complexities while taking into account various physical phenomena. The LM methodology simplifies the multi-objective constrained optimization problem into a single-objective unconstrained formulation and also brings subjective notions of design into the scope. The new approach is applied to redesigning kinematic, dynamic and control parameters of an industrial manipulator.