Robot evaluation and selection Part A: an integrated review and annotated taxonomy.

Koulouriotis, D. E.; Ketipi, M. K.

Robot selection for a given industrial application is a challenging and complicated procedure. The production system, comprising a variety of applications with different specifications and demands, perceives the necessity for rapid and effective decisions. In addition, the procedure of robot selection is encumbered by the number of alternative options and the nature of their characteristics. The plethora of methodologies which have been introduced, during the last four decades, for the solution of robot selection problem, raises the need for an extensive research which could incorporate all the corresponding articles of the literature. In the current article, an extensive, aggregate, and detailed review for robot selection problem (RSP) is presented, including a wide variety of models, ranging from the first attempts which have been developed in order to approach the issue to the most contemporary and flexible decision methodologies. In advance, these models are classified considering the pattern of RSPs and analyzed according to robots' attributes as well as to decision parameters. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are also mentioned, considering the flexibility and the other utility parameters. The significance of this work initially lies in the fact that it presents the aforementioned information in a compact and organized way and highlights the main distinctivenesses of each method/category. Using comprehensive tables and diagrams, the particular work aims to be an informative companion for future researches in the field of robot selection.

ROBOT control systems; ANNOTATIONS; TAXONOMY; FLEXIBILITY (Mechanics); DECISION making; ROBOTICS; DECISION theory; PROBLEM solving; GRAPHIC methods

International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2014, Vol 71, Issue 5-8, p1371

0268-3768

Academic Journal

10.1007/s00170-013-5525-5