A SYSTEM ENGINEERING APPROACH FOR ROBOT MANIPULATOR DESIGN USING GAME ENGINE SIMULATION AND COMPUTATIONAL MODELING

Modern game engine platforms are increasingly used in the field of robotics due to their built- in support for creating real-time simulation within an Extended Reality (XR) environment. This research investigates the integration of game engine platforms into systems engineering processes in the robotics domain. A novel method for the design of robotic manipulators, focusing on actuator selection, based on robot motion simulation within game engine platforms using integrated functionalities for joint torque calculation, is presented. The proposed robot model integration methodology involves the use of a CAD-based robot model, the game engine’s physics engine, and MATLAB Simscape as an intermediate modeling environment. This approach enables appropriate actuator selection, verification of component dimensioning, and accelerates the design process. The proposed approach offers a cost-effective and flexible alternative to traditional simulation environments and offers enhanced immersive visualization of robotic systems through XR technologies. The simulated joint actuator torques are verified using MATLAB Simscape for a 6-DoF articulated robot model.