Fault-tolerant kinematically redundant robots

Fault tolerance is a critical issue for teleoperated or autonomous robotic systems that are operating in hazardous and/or remote environments where joint failures are likely. A single joint failure can render an otherwise dexterous manipulator useless. In this article, we examine two measures of fault tolerance. In addition to determining optimally fault tolerant configurations, these measures can be used to control the robot in anticipation of a joint failure and to design fault tolerant robot geometries.