Hernando Leon-Rodriguez

Amphibious NDT Robots

Oil, petrochemical, and food processing industries worldwide store their raw materials and product in tens of thousands of storage tanks. The tanks are mostly constructed using welded steel plates and therefore subject to corrosion and weld cracking. Testing the structural integrity of these storage tanks with non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques is an expensive and time consuming activity. The walls of a large tank can usually be tested manually (for corrosion thinning and weld defects using ultrasonic techniques) from outside the tank. Access to most areas of a wall is obtained by constructing scaffolding or abseiling down from the top. However, erecting scaffolding is expensive and the inspection is tedious and slow. These costs can be reduced and the inspection speeded up by using climbing robots that deploy ultrasonic probes with scanning arms. However, there are some areas of the wall that cannot be accessed from the outside, for example at the base where the walls are protected by striker plates to run off rain water, or behind wind girders around the tank that are used to strengthen the tank, or obviously in tanks that are partially or fully buried in the ground. Similarly, storage tanks on ships cannot be inspected from the outside because they are surrounded by ballast tanks. To inspect the walls in these cases, the inspection has to be performed from inside the tank. Additionally, a primary source of trouble in tanks is the floor which can corrode quickly in localised areas due to ground chemistry and suffer damage to welds through soil movement. The floors can be inspected reliably only by entering the tank. Entry into tanks can be performed only when the tank has been emptied and thoroughly cleaned when it contains hazardous materials. The operation is hugely expensive requiring transportation of product to other tanks or locations, outages that last many months with subsequent loss of revenue, and cleaning costs incurred by repeated cleaning of the tank till all product is removed. Very large cost savings can be made by performing internal and in-service inspection of the walls and floors of storage tanks by using robots that can be inserted into a tank through manholes. The robots will have to operate in the product contained in the tank (e.g. crude oil, refined petroleum products, chemicals, liquors, etc.) and the robot should be capable of gaining access to target areas that are to be inspected (tank wall areas, floor areas, and welds on the walls or floor). O Access Database www.i-techonline.co m

Hand-based tracking animatronics interaction

Natural user interfaces are becoming more affordable and are changing how people interact with daily activities. These interfaces take advantage of human ergonomics increasing comfort, accuracy and performance during several tasks. New trends in user interfaces allow developing innovative forms of interaction in different scenarios; such is the case of robot teleoperation where joysticks, voice command, inertial sensors, haptics, and even Kinect sensors are easing their usage in educational contexts where people is getting familiar with robotics. This project presents the development of hand tracking application whose motion controls different servos on an animatronic; the goal is to motivate better understanding of robot morphology, sensors, actuators and kinematics for beginners. The system was tested using the hand and fingers as the controller while basic concepts were presented. After using the application and the animatronic device, users found the idea compelling and expressed their motivation for more knowledge regarding robotics.

Novel active locomotive capsule endoscope with micro-hydraulic pump for drug delivery function

This paper presents a novel mechanism and design of capsule endoscope in order to perform an active locomotive capsule endoscope (ALICE) robot integrated with micro-hydraulic pump for drug delivery function. The proposed locomotive capsule endoscope can actively move and investigate in gastrointestinal tract, powered externally by an electro-magnetic actuation (EMA) system. To perform a drug pumping function, the rotating frequency of the active hydraulic pump can be adjusted by the EMA system. The novel capsule endoscope with the micro-hydraulic pump is focused on target drug delivery function. The capsule endoscope is able to target suspicious region and release controllable amount of drug. Through preliminary tests of the locomotive capsule endoscope with the micro-pump, the feasibility of the locomotion and the drug releasing of the novel capsule endoscope will be presented. The micro-hydraulic pump for a drug delivery function will be a potential component for a future capsule endoscope with active maneuverability, diagnostic and therapeutic functions.

Conceptual design of micro-hydraulics system for active and biopsy capsule endoscope robot

Capsule endoscope is commercial design product used as a medical device for endoscopy test in the small intestine preferably. This paper presented a novel conceptual design and power mechanism in order to perform a capsule endoscope robot with micro-hydraulic biopsy tools system. The capsule endoscope presented can moves as active device, powered externally by an electro-magnetic actuation system (EMA). The EMA system can be frequency adjust to activate the micro-hydraulic pump as the main power generator to perform the micro-actuator and/or micro-biopsy tool. The conceptual design is focused in two capsule containers; these are proposed to be able to obtain additional space for the biopsy tools. Preliminary test of the micro-pump power by EMA system are presented for future application of capsule endoscope with active motion maneuvers and micro-biopsy tools operation in real-time.

Wireless climbing robots for industrial inspection

Climbing robots have proven their abilities and enormous potential for industrial inspection tasks. These automated systems can climb, work, perform different actions in hazardous environments, changing between different types of surfaces and navigating through narrow spaces with difficult accessibility. Recently advances in mechanical engineering design and materials such as composites, have resulted in components and structures with complex geometries that need to be inspected more rigorously with more robust devices and novel techniques. The paper describes a survey on climbing robots for different environments along with adhesion techniques that operate in critical industrial environments, such as aerospace, transportation, pipelines, petro-chemical processing and power generation. The application for these robots are mainly for surveillance and inspection rather than executing none destructive tests.

ACTIVE CAPSULE ENDOSCOPE MICRO-ROBOT WITH BIOPSY TOOLS

This paper presents an active locomotive intestinal capsule endoscope as a micro-robot that travel into the digestion system with wireless control abilities. The capsule endoscope is integrating with novel micro-biopsy tools to be able to extract tissue samples from the small and larger intestine. The entirely capsule system has abilities of target random biopsies by localization method, coming to right place to take biopsy sample, take and send several hundred of pictures for further analysis by the doctor. The biopsy mechanism provides passive triggered mechanism with highly active positional accuracy to collect the biopsy tissue sample and control along the way of the intestine.

Ferrofluid soft-robot bio-inspired by Amoeba locomotion

This paper presents a novel application based on the bio-inspired motion of the Amoeba. This research is focused on development a soft micro robot based on the Amoeba locomotion which can be named Whole Skin Locomotion. The robot is created using the fluid filled toroid method that acts as a body shaping feature with ferrofluid material placed within that is delivered to create the driving force. The passive fluid switch acts as an active sensitive liquid when a magnetic field is applied. Therefore, based on this behaviour in order to produce the driving motion external Electromagnetic coils are arranged as a wireless control and actuator. A number of motions and hindrances are currently presented to insure the principal motions of the robot. Some other approaches of ferrofluid soft-robot biomimetic inspired are also presented as well.

FERROMAGNETIC SOFT ROBOT BIO-MIMETICALLY INSPIRED

Nature has adapted to allow the survival of its species through the development of several forms, materials, techniques and processes. These features, such as flying, defensive and offensive mechanisms and many others have inspired researchers, creative and enthusiasts into developing artificial solutions that mimic their natural counterparts. Early developments of biomimetic involved large structures, however, with current advances in mechanics, electronics, and computer science the development of micro and nano structures is allowing the creation of more complex, flexible and portable structures resembling biological features found in nature. These advances in robotics may help solve or improve tasks otherwise difficult with traditional robotics. This paper focuses on the design and development of soft-robotic manta ray prototype whose motion is controlled using magnetic fields over a body composed of a ferro-fluid. The goal is to explore magnetics actuation as an alternate mean to control and reduce soft-robotics size as an alternative to current traditional mechanical or electromechanical biomimetic developments and even shape memory alloys

Helical motion and 2D locomotion of magnetic capsule endoscope using precessional and gradient magnetic field

Recently, a conventional capsule endoscope was developed and has been used for a diagnosis to make up for the limitations of conventional flexible endoscopy. However, the capsule endoscope has also some limitations and low diagnostic effectiveness because of its passive movement through the peristaltic motion of digestive organs. To overcome these problems, there are several researches about active mobility of capsule endoscope. In this paper, we proposed helical motion and locomotion mechanism for magnetic capsule endoscope using the electromagnetic actuation (EMA) system. Through the combination of the magnetization direction of the capsule endoscope prototype and the precessional magnetic field which can be generated by 3-pairs of Helmholtz coils, the capsule endoscope prototype can show a precessional motion. In addition, the capsule endoscope prototype can move toward an aligned direction by a gradient magnetic field of Maxwell coils. First, we fabricated a capsule endoscope prototype with a desired magnetization direction and verified its scanning function through the helical motion of the capsule endoscope prototype in mock-up of tubular digestive organs. Second, the capsule endoscope prototype also has a propulsion force to the perpendicular direction of axial vector when it track the helical path, and this force make the capsule endoscope prototype to attach the inner wall of tubular environment. Finally, through the planar locomotion test in stomach phantom, we have verified the feasibility of the capsule endoscope using an electromagnetic actuation system.

DIDACTIC HUMAN ANTHROPOMORPHIC GRIPPER FOR AUTOMATION TEACHING

This paper presents the design, development and implementation of a 14 DOF human anthropomorphic gripper as a didactic tool for teaching automation basics using pneumatics and PLCs. The anthropomorphic hand’s fingers behave like serial robots and their motion allows performing several types of power and precision grasps just as the human hand, this collaborative motion can be seen as robotics workcell where each finger is an actuated mechanism with a specific task. Through the programming of each mechanism, the objective of the pneumatic hand is to enhance the student’s skills for executing collaborative actions through pneumatics and PLC basic concepts over the device. Robotics has been widely used as a teaching assistive tool in several areas such as in training surgical procedures, manipulation of elements in hazardous environments for us, kinematics, dynamics and path planning simulations for various industrial processes, or as didactic tools for inspiring school students for working with robotics. The system’s architecture is composed of an anthropomorphic gripper controlled by a PLC along with the pneumatic actuators for simulating the muscles, and the user’s inputs for executing the chosen tasks. For overcoming the physical limitations of having just one device, an offline virtual environment is also developed, so several users may program and perform practices for later execution on the real device.