Constrained Locomotion and Coordinated Path Planning of Multi Robot Swarmitfix Intelligent Fixtures

Abstract

Sheet metal manufacturing is finding wide applications in automotive and aerospace industries. Handling of giant sheet material in manufacturing industries is one of the key problems. Utilization of reconfigurable robots will address this problem and automate the fixturing process, which greatly reduces lead time and thus the production cost. Implementation of intelligence in robots will further improve efficiency in handling and reduce manufacturing inaccuracies. Self-reconfigurable intelligent swarm fixture (SwarmItFIX) is a multi-agent robotic setup consist of Head, PKM (Parallel Kinematic Machine), and Mobile base as agents and mainly used for large sheet metal fixturing. The role of the head agent is to provide support during machining after getting adapted with geometry of the sheet metal. The PKM agent is mainly responsible for positioning of the head agent at required support locations. The mobile base agent performs a novel Swing and Dock (SaD) locomotion on top of the fixed platform called workbench. When the target support location is away from the reach of the PKM, the mobile base agent performs SaD locomotion which facilitates the SwarmItFIX to reach a position to support the sheet metal.