Web Based Virtual Robot Prototyping and Manufacturing

Developing an environment that enables optimal and flexible design of robot manipulators using reconfigurable links, joints, actuators, and sensors is an essential concept towards efficient robot design and prototyping. Such an environment should have a complex set of software and hardware subsystems for designing the physical parts and the controllers, and for the algorithmic control of the robot modules (kinematics, inverse kinematics, dynamics, trajectory planning, analog control and digital computer control). Specifying object-based communications and catalog mechanisms between the software modules, controllers, physical parts, CAD designs, and actuator and sensor components is a necessary step in the prototyping activities. In this project, we propose a web interface based prototyping environment for robot manipulators with the required subsystems and interfaces between the different components of this environment. The goal is to build a system of components that allows potential customers (located anywhere geographically) to input through a web interface a set of request / design parameters and specifications (such as torque, dexterity, repeatability, velocity etc), that could be analyzed, simulated and converted to specific manufacturing information that can be ultimately used by an automated manufacturing plant. The plant would be able to build consumer robots tailored to specific requirements and deliverable to customers flexibly