Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2009
The application of heavy robots is usually restricted to those problems where large loads are carried and high speed is not required. This paper proposes a method for the improvement of robot dynamic capabilities thus enabling a heavy robot to perform the fast manipulation. The approach follows the idea of “distributed positioning” and introduces redundancy. The concept adopted is proved on two different configurations: an elbow-scheme manipulation robot and a gantry welding robot.