In this study, a systematic design procedure for improvement of robot's performance is suggested and a software system is developed for the case of articulated robots in X window.
It consists of robot representation, analysis and optimal design modules. The robot representation module constructs geometric and kinematic models for robots using 3-D interactive graphics. Once the robot is represented, inverse kinematic and inverse dynamic analyses for puma-like robot are made for interactively given trajectory in the analysis module. In the optimal design module, the link length of the robot and the velocity profile of its end-effector are designed so that the resulted design has the fastest cycle time for the norm task while satisfying the specified working area.
Numerical results of optimization demonstrate considerable improvement in cycle time compared with that of initial design.