A Robot Factors Approach to Designing Modular Hardware

Robots are increasingly being called on to operate in settings and on tasks originally designed for humans, or where humans are also expected to work. Accordingly, the hardware and tools to be packaged, operated, or maintained are typically designed for use by humans, not robots. Robot autonomy in such cases can be expedited by a “robot factors” approach to the design of hardware, analogous to ergonomics for humans, taking typical current robot capabilities into account during the design process. In this paper, we present two case studies of redesigning mission-critical hardware in space habitats to facilitate autonomous robot operation. In both cases, hardware that previously required dexterous bi-manual manipulation is redesigned such that the entire maintenance task can be completed by a single robotic arm with a standard parallel jaw gripper. We demonstrate successful autonomous replacement of modules in the two hardware systems, and characterize how orientation and compliance of a grasp helps compensate for positioning errors. Based on our findings, we identify several key design strategies that underpin the robot factors approach to designing robot-friendly hardware, including consolidating compound actions into simpler mechanisms, constraining required motions to a single axis, and introducing mechanical compliance to mitigate the effects of pose uncertainties.