In today's flexible manufacturing and short production runs, the goals set for an automated environment would be aided by the presence of mechanical modular robots. Modular robots can be defined as manipulators built of standard units, from a finite inventory, that are controlled by one general control system. In this thesis, the results of a preliminary research into modular robotics are presented. The two objectives of this research were:​ 1) the conceptual design of a set of self-contained, independent units (modules) that are connectable to any other unit regardless of type to form a desired robot geometry, and 2) the development of an optimization procedure to select an optimal robot geometry to best suit the task at hand.

The conceptual robot modules presented in this thesis have hollow-cylindrical-shell structures with standard connection devices on both ends of the modules. The individual modular robot modules that are presented include:​ one degree-of-freedom (dof) main joints (rotary and prismatic) and one dof end effector joints, all with DC servomotors and harmonic type transmissions to provide necessary joint motion;​ links to provide the necessary reach;​ and, connectors (base, in-plane, and out-of-plane) to allow the robot to be configured in more than one plane.

The optimization procedure presented in this thesis primarily aims at selecting a manipulator geometry type (number and type of joints, and their sequence) with a minimum number of dof (number of joints) for the task at hand. Upon selecting a geometry, the procedure determines the corresponding unique set of link lengths and a base location. If a unique solution is not possible, the procedure selects a corresponding optimal set of link lengths and a base location (using direct or iterative techniques) which yield minimum cycle time. If multiple geometry types with the minimum number of dof exist, the geometry which yeilds the lowest cycle time is selected as the optimal solution.