Journal of Bionic Engineering 4 (2007) 217−226

Concept of Intelligent Mechanical Design for Autonomous Mobile Robots

Amir A. F. Nassiraei, Kazuo Ishii

Kyushu Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka 808–0196, Japan

Abstract
The concept of Intelligent Mechanical Design (IMD) is presented to show how a mechanical structure can be designed to
affect robot controllability, simplification and task performance. Exploring this concept produces landmarks in the territory of
mechanical robot design in the form of seven design principles. The design principles, which we call the Mecha-Telligence
Principles (MTP), provide guidance on how to design mechanics for autonomous mobile robots. These principles guide us to ask
the right questions when investigating issues concerning self-controllable, reliable, feasible, and compatible mechanics for
autonomous mobile robots. To show how MTP can be applied in the design process we propose a novel methodology, named as
Mecha-Telligence Methodology (MTM). Mechanical design by the proposed methodology is based on preference classification
of the robot specification described by interaction of the robot with its environment and the physical parameters of the robot
mechatronics. After defining new terms, we investigate the feasibility of the proposed methodology to the mechanical design of
an autonomous mobile sewer inspection robot. In this industrial project we show how a passive-active intelligent moving
mechanism can be designed using the MTM and employed in the field.
Keywords: mechanical design, intelligent, autonomous robot, mobile robot
Copyright © 2007, Jilin University. Published by Elsevier Limited and Science Press. All rights reserved.

reliability have largely been ignored. This is not simply a

1 Introduction
In the 21st century, it is expected that robots with
different degrees of autonomy and mobility will play an
increasingly important role in all aspects of human life.
To do this, robots must become much more complex
than they are today. The development of such robots
presents a great challenge to researchers. However, the
drawbacks of increasing robot complexity, the necessity
for more complex hardware, software and mechanical
structures, may lead to low reliability and increasing size,
weight, cost, power consumption and motion limitation.
To avoid these problems, the simplification of robots
mechatronics is critical to their design. Although eve-
ryone working in robotics soon confronts the reality that
the design of the mechanical structure greatly affects the
performance and controllability. Theoretical and prac-
tical investigations of the relationship between robot
mechanical structures and resulting controllability and
Corresponding author: Amir A. F. Nassiraei
E-mail: amir@roboplus.jp
peripheral oversight, but a fundamental gap in the field
of robotics[1]. The challenge is to find a unified approach
or methodology to design suitable mechanics for
autonomous mobile robots to provide high degrees of
performance, functionality, simplicity and reliability.
There is no concrete method or approach to actually
design such systems, in so much as there is no unified
approach to creativity; given a particular need, each
individual designer will design something different[2].
The concept of “Intelligent Mechanical Design
(IMD)” presented in this paper, concerns a methodology
for the mechanical design of autonomous mobile robots.
Using what we call the MTM involves seven mechanical
design principles are employed to maximize the de-
signer’s creativity and lead to simpler, more suitable,
mechanically superior solutions for complex problems.
In this methodology suitable optimum mechanics are
designed by considering the robot’s tasks, behaviors,
 218 Journal of Bionic Engineering (2007) Vol.4 No.4
morphology, and analysis of the environmental and
physical-morphological constraints within the design
process. This paper is divided into four main topics. First,
in section 2, we discuss the concept of intelligence in
relation to its application to our work here with reference
to how it is presented in the book of Understanding In-
telligence written by Rolf Pfeifer and Christian
Scheier[3]. This approach to understand intelligence can
be used as a guide in description of IMD and establishes
the fundamentals of our theory of mechanical design, in
the form of the seven design principles (MTP) presented
in section 3∗. Third, in section 4, we introduce the pro-
posed mechanical design MTM. We show how the MTP
can be applied in the robot mechanical design. Finally,
we investigate the feasibility of the proposed method-
ology by applying it to the mechanical design of an
autonomous mobile sewer inspection robot. In this in-
dustrial project we show how a passive-active intelligent
moving mechanism can be designed based on MTM and
employed as a robot platform for inspecting a real sewer
pipe network.
ligent mechanics”, “mechanical intelligence”, and “in-
telligent designer”. “Intelligence” is used here as an
umbrella term for similar and related concepts. The IMD
is the concept on which the MTM for the mechanical
design of autonomous mobile robots is based. This
methodology assists the designer to create and design
simple, suitable and sufficient mechanical solutions for
problems with different degrees of complexity. Me-
chanical designs based on the proposed methodology
may include intelligent mechanics, passive mechanisms,
making use of body morphology and advanced materials
and mechanical solutions that exploit the local envi-
ronment. Since the MTM encourages the designer’s
creativity, the results of the design strongly reflect the
aptitude of the designer. We hope that all the above is
captured in the word “intelligent”, the definition of
which is our first step to develop a methodology for
designing the ideal mechanics for robots with different
degrees of autonomy and mobility.

2 Mechanics and intelligence

Let us start with a fundamental question in
autonomous mobile robot design: “What is the ideal
mechanical design for an autonomous mobile robot that
can perform the defined desired behavior(s) in an envi-
ronment in which it will be used?” Fig. 1 Mechanical design of an autonomous mobile robot
and related factors.
Thinking deeply about this basic question reveals
two main problems. First, the exact meaning of the term
of “ideal” in relation to a robot being reliable, robust,
simple, suitable, etc. Second, the lack of exact defini-
tions for these terms when applied in the mechanical
design of an autonomous mobile robot (see Fig. 1). In
this paper we tackle these problems by proposing to
integrate all such terms with one: “intelligent mechani-
Fig. 2 New approach to mechanical design of an autonomous
cal design (IMD)” (Fig. 2). Note that the meaning of mobile robot and related factors.
“intelligent” as presented in this paper, is not the same as
in common phrases such as “intelligent design”, “intel- 2.1 What is intelligence?
“Intelligence is a large field and the human being is
* Note that all selected terms to describe the concept of “intelligent mechanical not yet ready to even understand its fundamentals.
design” and also seven mechanical design principles (except the first principle)
are our original. Only the way to the description the term of “intelligent me- Maybe he will never ever understand what it's all about.
chanical design” and the idea to establish the landmarks of the territory of
mechanical designing in the form of different principles are inspired from the We are living in a huge complex environment and nature
description of “intelligence” term and the design principles of “autonomous is just too complex to explain in three to four sentences.
agent” presented in the book of Understanding Intelligence .
 Amir A. F. Nassiraei, Kazuo Ishii: Concept of Intelligent Mechanical Design for Autonomous Mobile Robots
Intelligence is something that was created by nature and
sure not by us humans ourselves”[4]. Many leading ex-
perts in their fields have attempted to define and describe
intelligence. The results have been a myriad of defini-
tions with none of these experts seeming be sure about
even their own definition. One wonderful approach not
only to meaning of “intelligence”, but also use of the
term in the design process for autonomous agents is
found in a book by the title “Understanding Intelli-
gence”[3]. The authors use the concept of intelligence to
define what they call complete agents and, in turn, they
use this concept to form one of their design principles
(the complete agent principle) for the design of
autonomous agents**.
2.2 Intelligent mechanical design
Following Pfeifer’s approach in attempting to cre-
ate an acceptable definition of “intelligence” we will
briefly discuss the related terms necessary to produce a
suitable definition of IMD.
Intelligent Mechanical Design (IMD): This term is
used to describe complete mechanical designs (designs
that are self-controllable, reliable, feasible, and com-
patible) that resolve the functionality-usability trade-off
in an optimal way. Mechanical design must always be
considered with respect to a particular environmental
niche.
Self-controllable: A mechanical design is self-
controllable if it can be controlled by a set of internal
hardware, independence of external motive forces.
Self-controllability should always be considered with
respect to a specific system.
Reliable: A mechanical design is reliable if, in the
majority of cases, it fulfills its design specification.
Feasible: A mechanical design is feasible if it can
be manufactured as a real mechanical structure using
current manufacturing methods and commercial mate-
rials. Feasible mechanical design is influenced by a
number of requirements, such as cost, size, weight, wa-
ter tightness, dust resistance, etc.
Compatible: A mechanical design is compatible if
**
While Pfeife discuses the definition of “intelligence” and design process of
“autonomous agents”, in this paper the concept of “Intelligent Mechanical
Design” and design process of “mechanics of autonomous mobile robots” are
proposed.
219
the design of the sensory-motor architecture has com-
patibility with the size, weight and shape of the hardware.
Compatibility should always be considered with respect
to a specific system.
The functionality-usability trade-off: Represents a
compromise between, on the one hand, adding new
functionality, and on the other, achieving usability con-
ditions[5].
Environmental niche: The environmental niche for
a robot can be thought of as the range of each variable in
its environment. We use the term of “environment” here
to mean essentially two things. First, the direct-physical
meaning: the area or space in which the robot is used,
including natural and artificial objects. Second, the in-
direct-physical meaning: the artificial parameters gov-
erning its function. This requires some explanation, here
we use an example. Consider a robot designed to com-
pete in a can-collecting competition (see Fig. 3). The
task of the robot is to collect objects in its environment
and bring them to a can room located in a corner of the
competition area. The rules of the game include limita-
tions in size of the robot that the robot should fit in a box
with specific dimensions, and the cost for making the
robot is also limited. In this case, the environmental
niche can be itemized as follows.
Environmental niche:
● A flat surface (Direct)
● Indoor environment (Direct)
● A set of cylindrical can (Direct)
● A light (Direct)
● A can-room (Direct)
● Size limitation (Indirect)
● Cost limitation (Indirect)
Fig. 3 Example of can-collecting robot. Size and cost
limitations are assumed.
 220 Journal of Bionic Engineering (2007) Vol.4 No.4
Environmental niche constraints:
● Can size (D, H) (Direct)
● Light height (H1: if H4 > H1) (Direct)
● Can-room size (L2, W2, H2) (Direct)
● Can room door size (W3: if W3 < W4, H3: if H3 < H4)
(Direct)
● Robot size (L4, W4, H4) (Indirect)
● Cost (cost < X $) (Indirect)
In this example, limitations in size and cost illus-
trate the second aspect of the environmental niche. Note,
because of the robot size limitation, some environmental
niche constraints should be considered to be conditional
constraints. As an example, the height of the ledge (H1)
is a constraint, if it is lower than the maximum height of
the robot (H4 > H1). In this approach all design parame-
ters that influence the mechanical design can be consid-
ered part of the environmental niche and must be con-
sidered in the fourth MDP presented in the next section.
3 Mechanical design principles: MTP
The concept of IMD described above is the basis of
the seven design principles that form the MTP. They
incorporate many insights gained in this large design
field in a compact and coherent form. MTP guide us to
ask the right questions when designing self-controllable,
Fig. 4 Overview of design principles of mechanical design of autonomous mobile robots, MTP.
reliable, feasible, and compatible mechanics for
autonomous mobile robots (see Fig. 4). We highlight the
definition of robot environment, behaviors and tasks as
Meta principles to underscore their centrality to the me-
chanical design process for autonomous mobile robots.
Also, note that using the term IMD to describe complete
mechanical designs, is landmark as second principle.
This section describes the seven MTP in details.
(1) The three-constituent principle
In the approach presented here robot design forms a
compromise between, “Robot environment” and “Robot
desired behaviour” (see Fig. 2). Designing mechanical
parts for autonomous mobile robots always involves
three constituents: (I) definition of environmental niche;
(II) definition of desired behaviors and tasks; (III) design
of robot mechanics[3].
Constituent (III) has been split into design princi-
ples 2 through 7. A mechanical design problem can be
started as follows: given the intended environmental
niche and the desired behaviors, how to design the me-
chanical parts of the robot? Alternatively it can be stated:
“We already have a robot with a particular architecture.
We also have a particular environmental niche. What
mechanism or mechanical parts are required to add de-
sired behaviour or tasks?”[3]
 Amir A. F. Nassiraei, Kazuo Ishii: Concept of Intelligent Mechanical Design for Autonomous Mobile Robots
(2) The complete-mechanical design principle
This principle states that IMD is complete, that is,
from sub-section 2.2, complete mechanical designs are
self-controllable, reliable, feasible, and compatible.
(3) The principle of mechanical balance
This principle has two aspects. First, the complex-
ity of the mechanical design has to match the complexity
of the robot’s desired behaviors. Second, the robot me-
chanics should not be designed “in a vacuum” but rather
must take the sensory system and hardware architecture
into account.
(4) The environmental principle
This principle states two things, that the physics of
the system-environment interaction and constraints of
the environmental niche should be exploited[3]. The
environmental principle is significant in that it has direct
effect on the simplicity and reliability of a mechanical
design. In many cases (especially “competition” and
“ordering” cases) the mechanics of a robot have to be
designed to satisfy all environmental niche constraints,
whether game rules or user requests, especially when
robot usability is considered. Also, in our experience in
different projects, we realized that any kind of limita-
tions in design parameters (even user requests such as
cost and operating life-time) can play a very important
role in a designer’s perspective and creativity. Therefore,
we have integrated all possible design parameters into
the concepts of “environmental niche” and “environ-
mental niche constraints”, as detailed earlier in
sub-section 2.2. In this approach all design parameters
that influence the mechanical design, make up the en-
vironmental niche and relative constraints.
(5) The sensory-actuator principle
This principle states that the type and position of
the sensors and actuators in a system have a direct effect
on robot functionality, performance, simplicity, and
reliability. By designing or selecting suitable and suffi-
cient sensors and actuators, and correctly fixing their
position in the system, the performance and functional-
ity of the robot is enhanced. The number of actuators and
sensors in a system can be affected by applying this
principle in the mechanical design process. This princi-
ple interacts strongly with the next.
(6) Shared sensory-actuator system principle
221
The principle requires sparing use of actuators and
sensors. The number of actuators and sensors used for a
system is a significant mechanical design parameter that
has a direct influence on system reliability.
(7) The mechatronics modularity principle
This principle states that a robot should have a
modular architecture in its electronics and mechanics.
This principle can play a significant role in both the
mechanical reliability mentioned in the second principle
and ease of maintenance. The modularization process
involves three steps. First, description of the system
architecture, in this step, the designer needs to produce
the architecture of the robot system as a flowchart.
Visualization can help the designer fully imagine the
robot, what it should include and how it can work as a
system. Second, defining the possible module/s,
based on this flowchart, the possible modules should
be defined by identifying common hardware structures
and mechanical connections. Third, merging single
modules, the basic idea here is to extend the “modular-
ity” concept by merging modules to decrease the number
of wires and other parts and improve reliability and
performance.
4 Mechanical design process: MTM
To show how MTP can be applied in designing an
autonomous mobile robot, we propose a novel method-
ology, the MTM (see Fig. 5). Mechanical design in the
proposed methodology is based on preference classifi-
cation of the robot specification. This specification is
created by describing the interaction of the robot with its
environment and the physical parameters of the robot
mechatronics (principle 1). In this approach the robot
specification is grouped into high- and low-level- speci-
fications which can be expressed as tasks (desired be-
haviors) and the physical parameters of the robot. The
high-level-specification has two layers, main and sub,
and is derived from the robot’s tasks and its interaction
with the environment where it is to be used. A
low-level-specification may consist of a set of layers
explaining the physical setup of the robot, its body,
sensory, and motor systems. The main goal of this
analytical process is to produce a mono-spec layer
(the last layer of low-level-specification) defining a basic
 222 Journal of Bionic Engineering (2007) Vol.4 No.4
Fig. 5 Overview of MTM for mechanical design of autonomous mobile robots. Robot tasks are variable “X”.
function or selecting a sensor for a single task or be-
havior. The mechanical design is started from these
crucial mono-specs Then the mono-spec design is ex-
tended by adding the minimum actuators and sensors to
the design (principle 6). In each step we attempt to
produce a suitable solution by considering robot mor-
phology and actuator design, by applying the description
of environmental and physical-morphological con-
straints, and by employing passive mechanisms which
have inherent intelligence characteristics (principle 3
and 4). Mechanical design is finalized by considering the
suitable and sufficient positioning of the sensory-motor
system (principle 5) and modularity of the robot’s
mechatronics (principle 7).
5 Design process of an autonomous sewer pipe
inspection mobile robot
To investigate the feasibility of the proposed
methodology and show how MTM can be applied in the
real mechanical problems, we use a mechanical design
project funded by Japanese national government to de-
velop an autonomous sewer inspection robot. We de-
scribe how a passive-active intelligent moving mecha-
nism can be designed using the MTM and employed as a
robot platform for inspecting a real sewer pipe network.
The first step in MTM, as shown in Fig. 4, is to describe
the tasks, desired behaviors, environmental niche, and
environmental niche constraints.
5.1 Robot tasks
In general, sewer maintenance is classified into two
categories[6]:
● Inspection: Assessment of the sewer pipe interior
and detecting faults such as cracks, water infiltration,
root invasion, pipe breaks, and so on.
● Manipulation: Repairing sewer pipes after inspec-
tion.
In this study we concentrate on pipe inspection for
diameters of 200, 250, and 300 mm, respectively.
5.2 Desired behavior
The desired behaviors can be described in three
items: (Fig. 6)
● Ability to be inserted into the sewer via a manhole.
● To move autonomously in sewer network (without
operator intermediary) in the water-flow direction and
traverse different pipe bends, such as curves and junc-
tions. Using conventional methods, sewer pipe inspec-
tion is carried out using a cable-tethered robot with an
on-board video camera system. An operator remotely
controls the movement of the robot and looks for
damage in the images of pipe interior. All equipments
 Amir A. F. Nassiraei, Kazuo Ishii: Concept of Intelligent Mechanical Design for Autonomous Mobile Robots
necessary to supply and control the robot are inside a
vehicle, outside the manhole (“manhole” is specified in
Fig. 7). Significantly in conventional sewer inspection,
inspection is always performed in the water-flow direc-
tion.
● After retrieval, the number and position of faults
can be extracted from the robot’s sensory data.
Fig. 6 The description of desired robot behaviour based
on an autonomous sewer inspection scenario.
Fig. 7 An example of a network of sewage pipes in Japan,
within the diameter range of 200 to 300 mm. The ar-
rows inside of the pipe show the direction of water
flow into the pipe net.
5.3 Environment niche and relative constraints
The environment niche and relative constraints can
be defined and itemized as follows (Fig. 7).
Environmental niche:
● Outdoor environment (Direct);
● Circular sewer pipe, main pipe (Direct);
● Manhole (Direct);
● Inlet (Direct);
● Pipe bends, curve, Y- and T-junctions (Direct).
Environmental niche constraints:
● Diameter of main pipes is 20, 25 or 30 cm (Direct);
● Diameter of manholes is 90 or 120 cm (Direct);
● There is a manhole over all pipe-bends (Direct);
223
● Maximum distance between two manholes is
50 m (Direct);
● All pipes have at least 2 or 3 degrees slope, water
flows in one direction (Direct).
5.4 Simplification of the design functions
For the steps above, the high-level specification
layers including the main- and sub-layer are seen in the
left column in Fig. 8. The significant point in extracting
layer 1 from the sub-layer is that because sewer inspec-
tion is always performed in the water-flow direction, the
robot does not need to be able to step-upward. Fig. 8 (A
to E alphabets show in right side of figure) also illus-
trates the functional design priority from a mechanical
parts design point of view.
5.5 Design process: Applying the MTP
5.5.1 Design functions A to E
This sub-section provides an overview of our robot
design and its architecture. It also shows how the MTP
are applied in the design. There are numerous projects in
this field to develop multi-joint (snake-like) robots that
can traverse curves and junctions[7−9]. Most of these
robots have complex mechanisms and many sensors to
detect and pass bends. This complexity in both the
mechanism and data processing makes producing reli-
able commercial products difficult. The first step of our
approach is to design a propulsion mechanism, for which
we applied principle 4 (system environment interaction).
We look to models of water motion in pipes for inspira-
tion. Fig. 9 shows two models of water flowing inside a
pipe. It is intuitive that the right hand side model better
represents water movement. Surveying existing com-
mercial mechanisms in relation to these two models we
realized that the robot wheels should be rotated 90 de-
gree to more naturally match water flow inside a pipe.
Taking this approach we find that the robot can not only
move in a straight pipe but can also traverse various
kinds of pipe bends without any controls or sensor
readings[10]. Fig. 10 shows the extension of the design to
smooth movement using the “naSIR mechanism”[11]
traversing a curve, Y-junctions and T-junctions (apply-
ing principles 4 and 6)[12−14]. This mechanism can scale a
small step, from 5 to 10 cm depending on the size of the
 224 Journal of Bionic Engineering (2007) Vol.4 No.4

Fig. 9 Two possible models of water flow inside a pipe com-

pared with a commercial vertical robot and the naSIR
mechanism presented in this paper.

Fig. 10 Design extension for smooth movement with the

“naSIR mechanism” traversing curves, Y- and
T-junctions.

robot, using its suspension system. Scaling larger steps

Fig. 8 Mecha-telligence methodology applied in designing
an autonomous mobile.
can be achieved by installing a passive elevator inside
the manhole. The robot can get on to the elevator
which is activated by its weight (applying principles 3, 4,
and 6).
5.5.2 Design other functions
Figs. 11 and 12 show our approach to passively
adjustable robot tilt angle and navigation. Principle 4
was applied, in the form of material morphology, to
remove the tilt sensor from the robot hardware. Namely,
 Amir A. F. Nassiraei, Kazuo Ishii: Concept of Intelligent Mechanical Design for Autonomous Mobile Robots
we used different materials for the front and back wheels.
In this approach the robot adjusts its tilt angle passively.
Also we installed a passive encoder on the top of the
robot via a simple arm jointed to the top-back of the
robot. This provides precise navigation for the robot
including counting the number of manholes as the robot
passes them. When the passive encoder does not send
signal to the on-board main computer, it means robot is
in a manhole.
Fig. 11 The robot can adjust its tilt angle passively by using
different materials for the front and back wheels.
Fig. 12 Precise motion navigation for the robot using a
passive encoder on the top of the robot.
6 Conclusions
This paper presents the concept of IMD to demon-
strate how a mechanical structure can be designed to
influence robot controllability, simplification and task
performance. This concept is fleshed out in the form of
seven design principles. To show how these MTP can be
applied in the design of robot mechanics, we propose a
225
novel methodology, called the MTM. The feasibility of
the proposed methodology was demonstrated the me-
chanical design of a mobile autonomous sewer inspec-
tion robot. This project demonstrates how a pas-
sive-active intelligent moving mechanism can be de-
signed using the MTM with the result employed in a real
life situation.
Acknowledgement
This work was partly supported by a grant of
Knowledge Cluster Initiative implemented by Ministry
of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
(MEXT).
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