Thermal Modeling of Robotic Arm and Hand Moving in a Nonhomogeneous Temperature Field

Thermal modeling of a robotic arm equipped with a multifingered robotic hand (end effector) is considered in this paper. The robotic arm is assumed to move its multifingered hand into and out of a high-temperature medium while gripping an object for a pick and place assembly and heat treatment process. If the rate of heat transfer from robotic hand to robotic arm is small, a lumped-capacitance model can be used to find the transient temperature response of the robotic hand. Different models to approximate the effect of thermal coupling between the robotic hand and robotic arm are discussed. To analyze the effect of heat transfer from robotic hand to robotic arm, transient temperature distribution in one dimension of a rod periodically moving into a hot medium is found numerically. The rod is divided into two parts; the first part simulates the robotic hand and second part simulates the robotic arm. Using different thermal parameters and environmental conditions, transient and quasi-steady state temperature distributions in the rod for fast, intermediate, and slow transients are obtained. Transient and quasi-steady-state heat flux from robotic hand into robotic arm are obtained and its importance in thermal modeling of robotic arm moving in a nonhomogeneous temperature field is presented.