BEng Mechatronic Engineering

Syllabus

• Industrial robotics; terminology, classification, workspace, wrists and end-effectors.
• Description of the position of a rigid body in Robotics. Euler angles, roll, pitch and yaw angles, transformations. Forward and inverse kinematics for articulated manipulator, the Denavit-Hartenber (DH) convention.
• Robot velocity. Linear and angular velocities. General motion of a rigid body. Linear velocity of a point attached to a moving frame. Jacobian. Singularities.
• Robot motion. Force, moment, and torque. Newton-Euler formulation. Equation of motion. Lagrange formulation. Centre of Mass. Moment of inertia. Kinetic and potential energy of an n-link robot.
• Control of an independent joint model. Applying control theory (path planning and PID control) to industrial robotics.
• Introduction to materials; review of physical concepts, structure and its influence on properties, relative cost.
• Properties of materials; Young’s modulus elasticity, shear modulus of elasticity, Hooke’s law, Poisson’s ratio, yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, brittle and ductile materials.
  Mechanical structures under load; tensile, compressive, shear, thermal, stress, strain, strain energy, torsion, first moment of area (centroid), polar moment of inertia (shafts), second moment of area (beams).
• Deflection of structures under load; bending of beams, torque twist relation, stress transformations (Mohr’s Circle), buckling instability (Euler strut), forces in and analysis of structures, free body diagrams.
• Failure of materials. Stress concentration, toughness, fatigue failures, ultimate strength, corrosion.

The unit aims to:

This course unit introduces industrial robot configuration, the mathematical methods used to define their movement, and the mechanical techniques required to describe their dynamical behaviour.

An industrial robot arm is an example of a mechatronic system; it combines the required mechanical structure, actuators, sensors and control to enable an end-effector to be moved from one position to another.

The influence of the materials and structures used in the design of the mechanical components of industrial robots will also be studied.

All of the following Intended Learning Outcomes are developed and assessed. On the successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

ILO 1 - Apply homogenous transformations to find the position and orientation of the end-effector

ILO 2 - Identify the DH parameters of a robot.

ILO 3 - Use trigonometry to find the inverse kinematics of 3-joints robots.

ILO 4 - Analyse the movement of a robotics system by constructing its Jacobian.

ILO 5 - Apply Euler-Lagrange equations to a simple mechanical system and planar robotics systems.

ILO 6 - Identify the influence of material properties on their strength in terms of stress, strain and elasticity.

ILO 7 - Analyse a mechanical system with respect to moment and force equilibrium.

ILO 8 - Calculate the stress and strain on mechanical components when subject to tensile, compressive and torsional forces.

ILO 9 - Calculate the deflection of mechanical components when subject to tensile, compressive and torsional forces.

ILO 10 - Identify potential failure points in mechanical components due to loading and environmental conditions.

Theoretical knowledge is delivered in lectures and applied during practical session.

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1. Hutchinson S, Vidyasagar M (Mathukumalli), eds. Extracts. In: Robot Modeling and Control . Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons; 2006:478 p.: https://contentstore.cla.co.uk/secure/link?id=3a922d45-e10a-e611-80bd-0cc47a6bddeb.
2. Corke PI. Robotics, Vision and Control: Fundamental Algorithms in MATLAB® . Second, completely revised, extended and updated edition. Cham, Switzerland: Springer; 2017. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-54413-7
3. Siciliano B author. Robotics: Modelling, Planning and Control . (Sciavicco L author., Villani L author., Oriolo G author., eds.). London: Springer London; 2009. doi:10.1007/978-1-84628-642-1
4. Siciliano B, Khatib O, eds. Springer Handbook of Robotics . 2nd edition. Berlin: Springer; 2016. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-32552-1
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8. DR Askeland et al. The Science and Engineering of Materials – (many versions).