Shang Jianzhong

Development of controllable two-way self-locking mechanism for micro in-pipe robot

A controllable two-way self-locking mechanism was developed in this paper to improve the tractive ability of inchworm micro In-pipe robot and reverse its moving direction. Firstly, the robot structure was proposed and its relevant locomotive functions were introduced. Then the mechanism was analyzed and its mathematical model was built to deduce the conditions of direction reversing and diameter variation adapting. Finally a robot prototype was developed based on the results derived above, and its related experiments were carried to test these conditions.

Trench-crossing capability analysis of a reconfigurable tracked mobile robot

A reconfigurable tracked mobile robot (RTMBot) is presented in this paper based on a parallel four-bar mechanism. Firstly the structure of the robot is introduced. After that a centroid configuration model is proposed to analyze the trench-crossing capability of the robot and plan the locomotion configurations for crossing trenches. Then a virtual robot prototype has been constructed to analyze and simulate the performance of trench-crossing. Finally, a prototype of the reconfigurable tracked mobile robot has been produced, and experiments have been performed to verify the design concept and its embodiment. The results show that RTMBot can reconfigure itself to cross trenches.