Towards Dynamics and Control of Modular Reconfigurable Manipulators

This paper focuses at the dynamic modeling of a modular reconfigurable manipulators. Dynamic model of the manipulator changes with each reconfigured posture and therefore, control implication on this type of robotic arm changes. Adaptability of the dynamic model and controller to incorporate this change is a challenge. Idea of re-configurable robot is presented here to address the issue of customized robotic arms. These modular robots can be deployed quickly on site. In this work, architectural parameters of the reconfigurable modules, which affect significantly in the dynamics of the manipulator, are identified and the inertial parameters of the modules are approximated using the concept of equimomental system. Considerations of parameters in dynamic modeling after assembly of the heterogeneous modules are introduced. Euler-Lagrange formulation is used while formulating the equation of motion. Finally, a control simulation is shown for a 4 degrees-of-freedom (dof) modular configuration.