Concept of Intelligent Mechanical Design for Autonomous Mobile Robots

Abstract

In this paper, the concept of "intelligent mechanical design" will be presented to realize how a mechanical structure can be designed to have an effect to the robot controllability, simplification and its tasks performance. The description of this concept will lead us to establish the landmarks of the territory of mechanical designing in the form of seven design principles. The design principles, named "Mecha-telligence principles", provide a guidance on how to design autonomous mobile robots mechanics. These principles guide us in asking the right questions when investigating issues concerning a self-controllable, reliable, realizable, and compatible mechanics for autonomous mobile robots. To show how the "Mechatelligence principles" can be applied on the processes
of the design of robots mechanics, we proposed a novel methodology, named "Mecha-telligence methodology". Mechanical design in the proposed methodology is performed based on preference of classification of the robot specification described by interaction of the robot with its environment and, also, the physical parameters of the robot mechatronics itself. After the description of all new terms, presented in this paper, we investigate the feasibility of the proposed methodology by applying it in the process of mechanical designing an autonomous sewer inspection mobile robot. In this industrial project we will show how a passive-active intelligent moving mechanism can be designed based on “mecha-telligent methodology” and employed as a robot platform for inspecting the real
sewer pipe network.