Development of a New Variable Remote Center Compliance (VRCC) With Modified Elastomer Shear Pad (ESP) for Robot Assembly

Abstract

In this paper, a noble variable remote center compliance (VRCC) is developed. The VRCC has a simple structure to change the position of compliance center and to lock the VRCC. The VRCC consists of a top plate, a bottom plate and two modified elastomer shear pads (ESP). The modified ESP has a hole in its stiffness axis, and a stiffness adjusting rod (SAR) is inserted into the hole of the ESP. The stiffness of the modified ESP can be adjusted according to the insertion depth of the SAR so that the compliance center of the VRCC, which depends on the stiffness of the ESP, can be adjusted freely. Furthermore, by passing the SAR through the modified ESP, the VRCC can be locked easily. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed VRCC, a prototype VRCC is made and the variation of the compliance center is measured according to the insertion depth of the SAR. Note to Practitioners-This paper was motivated to reduce the number of machine tools which were used in connecting electric plugs in factory. But, this work is also applied to assembly machines which require inserting a round peg into a round hole. The existing machine tool can connect only one electric peg with fixed length, so various machine tools are needed according to the lengths of plugs. The proposed idea shows the way to solve this problem. By extending working capacity of the machine tool, it is possible that electric plugs with various lengths are connected by one machine tool and, consequently, the changing time and cost of machine tools can be reduced. The developed method removes changing of the machine tool. However, manual adjustment of the proposed machine tool is still needed to connect electric plugs with various lengths. Therefore, in the future research, motorized adjusting structure will be added to the proposed idea to improve manual adjustment of the machine tool.