Optimum Design of Stair-Climbing Robots Using Taguchi Method

Abstract

Environmental issues like pollution are major threats to human health. Many systems are developed to reduce pollution. In this paper, an optimal mobile robot design to reduce pollution in Green supply chain management system. Green supply chain management involves as similating environmentally and eco-nomically feasible solutions into the supply chain life-cycle. Smartness, advanced technologies, and advanced networks are becoming pillars of a sustainable supply chain management system. At the same time, there is much change happening in the logistics industry. They are moving towards a new logistics model. In the new model, robotic logistics has a vital role. The reasons for this change are the rapid growth of the e-commerce business and the shortage of workers. The advantages of using robotic logistics are reduction in human errors, faster delivery speed, bet-ter customer satisfaction, more safety for workers, and high workforce adaptabil-ity. A robot with rocker-bogie suspension is a six-wheeled mobile platform that has a distinctive potential to keep all wheels on the ground continuously. It has been designed to traverse rough and uneven terrain by distributing the load over its wheels equally. However, there is a limitation to achieving high-speed mobility against vertical barriers. In this research, an optimal design of product delivery wheeled robots for a sustainable supply chain system is proposed to ensure higher adaptability and maximum stability during climbing staircases. The design parameters of the proposed robot are optimized using Taguchi Method. The aim is to get a smooth trajectory of the robot’s center-of-mass. The proposed approach rea-lizes a robot with much-improved stability which can climb over heights more than the size of the wheel (i.e., 3 times the radius of wheels). The results reveal that the modified rocker-bogie system not only increases the stair-climbing cap-ability but also thwarts instability due to overturning of a wheel of the robot.