INNOVATIVE MECHANICAL DEVICES AS SERVO-SYSTEM COMPONENTS FOR AUTOMATION

摘要

The world of industrial automation is constantly evolving in search of those devices able to create systems characterized by ever increasing performance (low cycle timing, high precision positioning, simplified and ease of programming, management and optimization of the laws of motion, etc.). In any case, the mechanical designer is particularily adept toward the possibilities of intervention on components of known performance characteristics, almost standardized, even adaptable and suited for optimization of preexisting systems. In this frame, the workstudy elaborate, in extreme syntesis, on the functional characteristics of five servo actuators which could be particularily efficient either as components for motion generation in complex machines, or as self operating modules in elementary operations involving manipulation on simple trajectories and "pick-and-place". The five topic systems and their relative paragraphs are arranged as follow: a monoaxis belt driven system, based on differential mechanism, able of precision positioning at high speed; a Cartesian belt driven system, having similar characteristics of the monoaxis system previously listed; a manipulator, based on a epicycloidal gearing, able of extreme dynamic performances due to the positioning of both driving motors directly mounted on the supporting frame; a tripod parallel robot able of translational and rotational movements around two axis; a planar 2 DOF manipulator based on a 5-bar-linkage. Authors recognize that literature is full of original mechanisms for automation (and this explains the large number of given references) and, besides, some of the ones we present here are fully described by other authors in other papers. However, our choice has been to show here, in a "global vision", the devices on which our research group is involved, pointing our attention, rather than on theoretical aspects, upon the main characteristics of the studied actuators, which make them fitting to possible industrial (advanced) applications.