A Study of the Effect of a Kinematic Pair Containing Clearance on the Dynamic Characteristics of a Tool-Changing Robot

Abstract

The clearance of a kinematic pair will lead to the contact collision between the joints of the mechanism, which will have a great influence on the dynamic characteristics of a mechanical system with clearance. In order to study the influence of a rotating motion pair with clearance on the dynamic characteristics of a tool changing robot, a contact wear dynamics model of a modular tool changing robot was established based on the three-state model of “free-contact-collision”. Different from analysis of a light linkage structure, this paper takes a solid structure with large mass as the analysis object. Based on the impact contact force model and the improved Coulomb friction model, the effects of clearance size, rotational speed and friction coefficient on the dynamic characteristics of the tool changing robot were analyzed. The Archard wear model was used to predict the wear between the motion pairs with clearance. The analysis results show that, with the increase of clearance size and actuating speed, the fluctuation range of velocity and acceleration increases, and the fluctuation frequency decreases. Under the action of friction, the contact force between components will be reduced due to energy loss so that the kinematic reliability of the mechanism is improved. The wear of the moving pair with clearance is non-uniform. Through the research of this paper, the motion characteristics of the tool-changing robot at low speed and heavy load are clarified. The results show that the established method can realize the dynamic characteristics analysis of low-speed heavy-duty mechanisms with joint gaps, which can be used to guide the design of tool-changing robots, and also has important reference significance for the design of mechanisms containing joint gaps in general.