Task based design of modular robot manipulator using efficient genetic algorithms

Modular robot manipulator is a robotic system assembled from discrete joints and links into one of many possible manipulator configurations. This paper describes the design method of newly developed modular robot manipulator and the methodology of a task based reconfiguration of it. New locking mechanism is proposed and it provides quick coupling and decoupling. A parallel connection method is devised and it makes modular robot manipulator working well and the number of components on each module reduced. To automatically determine a sufficient or optimal arrangement of the modules for a given task, we also devise an algorithm that automatically generates forward and inverse manipulator kinematics, and we propose an algorithm which maps task specifications to the optimized manipulator configurations. Efficient genetic algorithms are generated and used to search for a optimal manipulator from task specifications. A few of design examples are shown.