Analysis and Synthesis of Reconfigurable Robotic Systems

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) offer a key technology for the realization of mass customization. Compared with integral systems, RMS may provide system configurations to satisfy a wide range of Functional Requirements (FRs). An important issue for RMS is configuration design, the determination of a configuration from all of feasible configurations to meet FRs. Configuration design of strongly coupled RMS, such as reconfigurable robotic system, has particular challenges due to special characteristics compared with dedicated systems. In this research, a methodology for the design of Reconfigurable Robotic Systems (RRSs) is described. The proposed methodology can be generalized to other reconfigurable manufacturing systems having similar features.