A SIMULATION STUDY OF ENERGY UTILISATION IN A VARIABLE LINK LENGTH 3 DOF REVOLUTE ARTICULATED MANIPULATOR

Determination of manipulator link lengths is one of the important criteria in robotic design. The purpose of this study is to find the minimum energy utilization for a 3 DOF revolute articulated manipulator to perform certain point- to- point task by varying the link lengths of the manipulator. The lengths of the second and third link of the developed manipulator can be varied accordingly. The investigation of energy for different link length combinations is carried out theoretically. In the simulation, the work- energy method is constituted in order to determine the average mechanical energy of the manipulator. The simulation shows that, different trajectory of motions results in different link length combinations that could give optimum average energy utilization. Results of the simulations shows that, improvement of mechanical energy utilization could be achieved by having variable link length of manipulator rather than having fixed length of manipulator's arms.