New indices for evaluating vibration characteristics of flexible-joint robots

Abstract

Structural vibration is a significant consideration for robotic applications such as machining where the robot is subject to large dynamic loading. Aiming at providing an efficient means to evaluating the vibration characteristics of industrial robots for these applications, this work proposes two new indices to quantify the elastic displacement of the tool mounted on the robot caused by the vibrations induced by external process loading for flexible-joint robots. For this purpose, a structural dynamic model is first developed to derive the frequency responses of the tool displacement. Then, the displacement-force and displacement-torque frequency response ratios are defined, which represent the mapping from the amplitudes of an external harmonic force and torque to the amplitude of tool displacement respectively. The upper bounds of the two ratios are used as evaluation indices for the vibration characteristics of the robot, which represent the worst situation of the tool displacement due to harmonic excitation with amplitude of unit force and unit torque respectively. With these indices, an efficient method is provided to predict whether the tool misalignment caused by periodic loading is acceptable for process quality requirement. Numerical simulation demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method for a robotic riveting system being developed for aerospace assembly.