A novel robot arm selection methodology based on axiomatic design principles

Many companies intend to utilize the robotic systems to improve the performance of their manufacturing systems. Since the robotic systems are complex, it is required to determine the most suitable robot arm at the beginning of the complete design process. However, due to the increase in the number of robot arm alternatives and existence of the multiple and conflicting criteria, it has become hard to the decision makers to select the appropriate robot arm for a production system. Although the traditional multiple criteria of decision-making techniques were heavily employed in the past for this problem, they were based on subjective judgments for both the alternatives and the criteria. Therefore, a methodology based on Axiomatic Design principles is proposed to help the decision maker decide the most appropriate robot arm on a scientific, systematic, and objective basis. Moreover, the proposed methodology is extended into a decision support system (DSS) through MATLAB software, to evaluate more alternatives rapidly. Both the proposed methodology and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) were applied to solve a small problem, so that the techniques will be compared and the utility of the proposed approach will be revealed. Besides, the proposed DSS was applied to a real robot arm selection problem of a food manufacturing system to show its performance in evaluating several alternatives and choosing the most suitable one in an objective and quick manner.