The Formula One Tire Changing Robot (F1-T.C.R.)

Formula One racing is one of the most fascinating sports ever, it is a perfect combination of high speed, technology, pressure and danger. One problem associated with car racing is the time differential between teams during pits stops, which substantially affects the final results. In addition, a high percentage of the accidents in Formula One is due to pit stop problems. Changing the tires of a car while almost in motion, after reaching dangerous pressure and temperature values, is a very risky challenge, no matter how well a team is trained. Approximately 15-25 people are constantly exposed to serious dangers. The risks taken are extreme and any idea of reducing it without affecting the quality of the race should be considered. Our idea is to build a fully robotized system that takes over the tire changing and refueling, process. There will practically be no need for human intervention. The system will demonstrate remarkable time accuracy, precision and low risk implications.© 2012 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.libproxy.bridgeport.edu/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=76999

An Application of Robotic Optimization: Design for a Tire Changing Robot

The final publication is available at link.springer.com.Robotics experiences tremendous evolutions every year. Once a topic is mainly approached at research centers, read through highly specialized books and viewed distantly on scientific channels, nowadays it is a common and very approachable subject among undergraduate students of many universities. More and more robots are being designed every day, demanding technological implementation and production. This progress does not come without its glitches, however. A common and increasing problem that appears is the insufficient testing, simulation and optimization steps that a robotic construction needs to pass in order to achieve an efficient design. These steps prove to be difficult and sometimes discouraging, resulting in laborious work, due to lack of tools. This paper presents an example of a robotic optimization and testing, using a generic software package, applied on a custom manipulator, a tire-changing robot. Although the manipulator is designed with its own simulation and control package, it may lack optimality or validity. We implemented a different software package, focused on optimization and control of simple generic robots (XXX.RRR types) and apply the package on the tire-changer manipulator. The results provide improvements for the primary controlling software and confirm its correctness.http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A100812123054