A new serpentine scissor-based reconfigurable manipulator specified for concave hull exploration

• Arman Mardani ^[2] ; Mahdi Bamdad ^[1]
  1. [1] Aalborg University

     Aalborg University

     Dinamarca

     
  2. [2] Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, Babol, Iran
• Localización: Mechanics based design of structures and machines, ISSN 1539-7734, Vol. 52, Nº. 8, 2024, págs. 5326-5349
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • In the realm of unstructured and cluttered dynamic environments, manipulators are increasingly being utilized to tackle challenges. This paper proposes a novel type of reconfigurable deployable scissor-based manipulator to overcome the obstacles presented by concave shapes on object surfaces. The proposed mechanism enables the robot to transform from a compact configuration to a larger, expanded state, facilitating its movement function. The focus is to design and explore the dynamics and geometric properties of the manipulator as it moves rigidly between the home configuration and the desired point hidden within a concave hull. The manipulator can adjust both the radius and length of the body curve simultaneously without flexible elements. In compact reconfiguration or point-to-point tasks, the scissor-based manipulator can sweep a small space that equals the manipulator curve. In comparison to tendon driven manipulators, the swept space, which denotes the space swept by all the points of the manipulator body, is reduced. This paper highlights the contributions of dynamic, kinematic, and geometric investigations in assessing the proposed manipulator’s performance. Stiffness analysis is conducted to identify the advantages of the new design over existing models while minimizing the swept space of a robot during convex hull exploration, which is an important consideration. Our study demonstrates that the serpentine deployable scissor-based mechanism can be an effective way to explore the concave hull of an environment, offering an adaptable approach to navigating complex geometries.