Mohamed Tahir Shoani, Mohamed Najib Ribuan, Ahmad Athif Mohd Faudzi
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Purpose
The current methods for inspecting tall or deep structures such as towers, chimneys, silos, and wells suffer from certain constraints. Manual and assisted inspection methods including humans, drones, wall climbing robots, and others are either costly, have a limited operation time, or affected by field conditions, such as temperature and radiation. This study aims to overcome the presented challenges through a teleoperated soft continuum manipulator capable of inspecting tall or deep structures with high resolution, an unlimited operation time and the ability to use different arms of the manipulator for different environments and structure sizes.
Design/methodology/approach
The teleoperated manipulator uses one rotary and two tendon actuators to reach and inspect the interior of a tall (or deep) structure. A sliding part along the manipulator’s body (arm constrainer and tendon router) induces a variable-length bending segment, allowing an inspection camera to be placed at different distances from the desired location.
Findings
The experiments confirmed the manipulator’s ability to inspect different locations in the structure’s interior. The manipulator also demonstrated a submillimeter motion resolution vertically and a 2.5 mm per step horizontally. The inspection time of the full structure was 48.53 min in the step-by-step mode and was calculated to be 4.23 min in the continuous mode.
Originality/value
The presented manipulator offers several design novelties: the arm’s thin-wide cross-section, the variable-length bending segment in a fixed-length body, the external rolling tendon routing and the ability to easily replace the arm with another of different material or dimensions to suite different structures and environments.
期刊介绍:
Industrial Robot publishes peer reviewed research articles, technology reviews and specially commissioned case studies. Each issue includes high quality content covering all aspects of robotic technology, and reflecting the most interesting and strategically important research and development activities from around the world.
The journal’s policy of not publishing work that has only been tested in simulation means that only the very best and most practical research articles are included. This ensures that the material that is published has real relevance and value for commercial manufacturing and research organizations. Industrial Robot''s coverage includes, but is not restricted to:
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Call for Papers 2020
AI for Autonomous Unmanned Systems
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Wearable Robotics/Exoskeletons.