Lecturer Profile |
Dr. Dan Zhang is a Kaneff Professor and Tier 1 York Research Chair in Advanced Robotics and Mechatronics at York University. Before 2016, Dr. Zhang was a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Advanced Robotics and Automation, and was a founding Chair of the Department of Automotive, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Laval University, Canada, in June 2000. Dr. Zhang's research interests include robotics and mechatronics; high performance parallel robotic machine development; sustainable/green manufacturing systems; rehabilitation robot and rescue robot. Dr. Zhang’s contributions to and leadership within the field of robotic and automation have been recognized with several prestigious awards, within his own university (Research Excellence Award both from university level and faculty level) and Kaneff Professorship, the Province of Ontario (Early Researcher Award), the professional societies (Fellow of the ASME, the CAE, the EIC and the CSME), and federal funding agencies (Canada Research Chair in January 2009 and renewed in January 2014). Dr. Zhang is the editor-in-chief for International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, the editor-in-chief for International Journal of Robotics Applications and Technologies. Dr. Zhang served as a member of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Grant Selection Committee. Dr. Zhang is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and a Fellow of Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME), a Senior Member IEEE, and a Senior Member of SME. |
Lecture Abstract |
There has been increasing in developing enviromentally-benign manufacturing technologies, robots, etc. This is considered a significant step in achieving sustainable development. Sustainability of a manufacturing system becomes critical technology that enables manufacturing companies to reduce production costs and improve their global competitiveness. System sustainability can be achieved by reconfiguration and decentralization, whose system configurations are evolved with the changes of design requirements and dynamic environment. The modular construction of parallel robotic machines allows them to be used as a class of reconfigurable machine tools. Nevertheless, parallel robotic machines as contemporary manufacturing robotic systems often have difficulty meeting the highly increased workplace demands on (1) operational accuracy, (2) operational load capacity, (3) task adaptability, and (4) reliability. For example, according to some large robot/robotic machine tool manufacturers and manufacturing robot user, i.e., ABB Robotics, Ingersoll Machine Tools Inc. and ATS Automation Tooling Systems Inc., the current robotic systems for high speed machining often fail due to thermal effects, which fatally distort the accuracy of the systems. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), more than 60% of industry robots operating in the manufacturing industry are articulated robots (i.e., serial robots), or robots that can only allow material handling, but not material fabrication. In this talk, the rational of using parallel robotic machines for green and sustainable manufacturing is discussed and explained. A comparative study is carried out on some successful parallel robotic machines and conventional machine tools. Meanwhile, the latest research activities of parallel manipulators in the Laboratory of Robotics and Automation of UOIT are introduced, they are: parallel robotic machines, reconfigurable/green robotic manipulators, web-based remote manipulation as well as the applications of parallel manipulators in micro-motion device, MEMS (parallel robot based sensors), wearable power assist hip exoskeleton, and rescue robot. |
