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Design and development of a cable-driven elephant trunk robot with variable cross-sections

Guodong Qin (Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Hefei, China; College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China and Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland)
Qi Wang (Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland)
Changyang Li (Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland)
Aihong Ji (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China)
Huapeng Wu (Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland)
Zhikang Yang (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China)
Shikun Wen (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China)

Industrial Robot

ISSN: 0143-991x

Article publication date: 20 February 2023

Issue publication date: 13 April 2023

273

Abstract

Purpose

In large equipment and highly complex confined workspaces, the maintenance is usually carried out by snake-arm robots with equal cross-sections. However, the equal cross-sectional design results in the snake arm suffering from stress concentration and restricted working space. The purpose of this paper is to design a variable cross-section elephant trunk robot (ETR) that can address these shortcomings through bionic principles.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper proposes a cable-driven ETR to explore the advantages and inspiration of variable cross-section features for hyper-redundant robot design. For the kinematic characteristics, the influence of the variable cross-section design on the maximum joint angle of the ETR is analysed using the control variables method and the structural parameters are selected. Based on the biological inspiration of the whole elephant trunk following the movement of the trunk tip, a trajectory-tracking algorithm is designed to solve the inverse kinematics of the ETR.

Findings

Simulation and test results show the unique advantages of the proposed variable cross-section ETR in kinematics and forces, which can reduce stress concentrations and increase the flexibility of movement.

Originality/value

This paper presents a design method for a variable cross-section ETR for confined working spaces, analyses the kinematic characteristics and develops a targeted trajectory control algorithm.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium, funded by the European Union via the Euratom Research and Training Programme (Grant Agreement No. 101052200 – EUROfusion). Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFB1309600), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51875281 and 51861135306) and China National Special Project for Magnetic Confinement Fusion Science Program (Grant No. 2017YFE0300503).

Citation

Qin, G., Wang, Q., Li, C., Ji, A., Wu, H., Yang, Z. and Wen, S. (2023), "Design and development of a cable-driven elephant trunk robot with variable cross-sections", Industrial Robot, Vol. 50 No. 3, pp. 520-529. https://doi.org/10.1108/IR-11-2022-0271

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

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