Motivation and Goals

Motivation

Robotic products are becoming increasingly developed to replace common tasks for greater integration into homes, businesses, and other arenas for decreased human work. For instance, iRobot has developed autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners. Another example of a household robotic product is the Asahi Robocco BeerBot, which pours beer into a glass. These products demonstrate an interest in developing such robotic products to perform simple tasks.

Design Goal

Many of such robotic products on the market are controlled by many motors, run elaborate software, etc. which is not the focus of this course. Unlike the products out in the market which have a major component of controlling actuators, our device will focus on the design of four bar linkages and running them using one motor at a constant velocity. We are trying to mimic the multiple motor control motion with just one motor.

The design goal we developed is stated as follows:

Design two distinct four-bar linkages with different motion profiles while driven by the same motor in order to pour a bottled drink into a glass.