Green and Sustainable Mobile Robots Design - a MCDM Approach

Abstract To safeguard the environment, products and technologies are made friendlier to it. In this context, more research works were already done in computing and supply chain management fields. But, only less amount of research happened in Robotics field. Particularly green robotics was not addressed well. This research work tries to address green robotics with two real world case studies. Further correlation between green robotics, green computing and green supply chain is also discussed. The strategies which are bringing sustainability in robotics are discussed. Adoption of green concepts from first stage (robot design and fabrication) to final stage (robot application) is addressed. The metrics used to verify green concepts are discussed. The criteria used in this study are green material selection (as per international standards), energy saving, cost saving and green computing. Two numerical examples – design of two educational mobile robots are presented. The problems were solved in a MCDM approach. A hybrid method, ISM-ANP was employed to crack the problems. The simulation results ensure that effectiveness of the proposed MCDM method.