Date of Award

Fall 1997

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

This thesis presents the design, implementation, and testing of a passive robotic wrist that is capable of establishing and maintaining an accurate position relative to a workpart edge through force guidance. The surfaces adjacent to the workpart edge are used to define the edge's true geometry. The wrist consists of three links in series connected by revolute joints and three linear compression springs offset from the revolute joints to create a torsion-like compliance. The third link contacts the workpart surfaces a three locations providing multiple unilateral constraints. These constraints along with the compliance created by the springs cause the third link to be repositioned so that any positional error will be eliminated and unique position/orientation will be obtained. The wrist will mechanically compensate for bounded robot trajectory error as well as bounded positional variation in the workpart edge location. The test results have shown that the desired force guidance behavior is achieved despite large positional error.

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