Z. Fu

A miniature wall climbing robot with biomechanical suction cups

Purpose – Wall climbing robots volume is needed to be very small in fields that workspace is limited, such as anti‐terror scouting, industry pipe network inspecting and so on. The purpose of this paper is to design a miniature wall climbing robot with biomechanical suction cups actuated by shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators.Design/methodology/approach – Based on characteristics of biologic suction apparatuses, the biomechanical suction cup is designed first. Theory analysis of the suction cup is made considering elastic plates deflection and SMAs constitutive model. A triangular close linkage locomotion mechanism is chosen for the miniature robot because of its simple structure and control. The robots gait, kinematics, and control system are all illustrated in this paper.Findings – Experiments indicate that the suction cup can be used as an adhesion mechanism for miniature wall climbing robots, and the miniature robot prototype with biomechanical suction cups can move in straight line and turn with a f...

New mechanism to pass obstacles for magnetic climbing robots with high payload, using only one motor for force‐changing and wheel‐lifting

– The purpose of this paper is to describe a new solution for wheel‐robots adhesion and passing‐obstacles mechanism and the optimal design of magnetic adhesion unit with finite element methods. The new mechanism makes the robot have a simpler structure, finer passing obstacles and larger payload capabilities., – After researching literature and analyzing in detail the disadvantages and advantages of magnetic wheel and structure magnet mounted under the chassis of a robot, the structure magnet is selected as the robots adhesion style. Then the paper introduces the robots structure and locomotion mechanism, the design of the new mechanism and the optimization of structure parameters for magnetic adhesion unit are described in detail in this paper. The new design can lift the robots wheel unit and change adhesion force using only a motor., – A prototype of robot has been developed and successful test results prove that the proposed technology is feasible. The climbing robot can overcome 70‐mm high obstacles and has a large enough payload capability while climbing on vertical surfaces., – The new design reduces the number of actuators used in the robot and increases the magnetic adhesion force., – Thanks to the excellent passing‐obstacles and payload capabilities, the climbing robot with the new mechanism has a widely applying prospect in the field of welding and inspecting large equipment., – The lifting mechanism can lift the wheel unit and change magnetic adhesion force using only one motor. This makes the robot have a simple structure as well as the large payload capability.

A novel design for the self-reconfigurable robot module and connection mechanism

Many researchers have paid more and more attention to the lattice self-reconfigurable modular robot for its excellent flexibility in connection and separation movements of modules. The paper proposes a novel design of self-reconfigurable robot module (M-Lattice) with the overall description. Moreover, the key features of modules genderless pin-slot-based connection mechanism are introduced. Finally, the connection mechanism is proved to be feasible for the tasks of modules self-reconfiguration by the experiments.

The Mechanism Design of a Wheeled Climbing Welding Robot with Passing Obstacles Capability

The paper describes the mechanical design of a new wheeled climbing robot which is planned to weld and inspect large scale non-structure equipment. The robot includes a 5-DOF manipulator and three pairs of novel wheel-mobile obstacle-passing units. The magnetic adhesion mechanism is a style of structure magnet which is mounted under the chassis of the robot and has a large payload. The lifting mechanism can pull the wheeled unit off the wall surface and adjust the gap between the magnet and the surface to change the adhesion force, using only one actuator. The robot with the novel mechanism has the advantages of having small number of motors, good obstacle-passing and large payload capabilities. While climbing vertical surface, the experiment shows that the robot can pass over a 70mm high obstacle and can carry 50KG payload.

Optimal feedback stabilization of a two-axis gimbaled system subject to saturation nonlinearity and multiple disturbances

Disturbances induced from platform motion, gimbal imbalance and state couplings, may severely degrade the line-of-sight tracking accuracy of a two-axis gimbaled system and even induce instability. This article intends to present a stable approach to realize optimal disturbance attenuation for a yaw-pitch gimbaled system, in the presence of saturation nonlinearity and multiple disturbances. A dynamic model of the line-of-sight dynamics is formulated and linearized; feedback controllers are synthesized via linear matrix inequalities and convex optimization; state trajectories of the system before and after stabilization are compared to examine the effectiveness of the feedback approach. The simulation results show that the synthesized controllers are effective in stabilizing the system and realizing optimal disturbance attenuation.

Wafer prealigning robot based on shape center calculation

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to provide a new wafer prealigning robot for the photo‐etching facility during the manufacturing of IC products.Design/methodology/approach – The shape center is measured by a reflection‐style laser sensor in the wafers radial direction, and the position is measured by a penetration‐style laser sensor. A dynamic error compensation is applied to eliminate the radial runout and wobble of the rotary stage, which have effects on the measurement of the wafers shape center.Findings – It is found that the new wafer prealigning robot can satisfy the accuracy requirement.Research limitations/implications – The robot requires that the shape center can be accurately calculated.Practical implications – The robot is applicable to wafer prealigning for the photo‐etching facility.Originality/value – A wafer prealigning robot based on the shape center calculation method has been developed and is described in the paper.

A new wafer prealigner

As a key part of the photo-etching facility, the wafer prealigner uses mechanical or optical aligning method to save the time and guarantee the quality of manufacturing. In this paper, a new wafer prealigner is proposed based on the mass center calculation method. The mass center is measured by a reflection-style laser sensor from the wafer’s radial direction, and the position is measured by the notch angle detection using the penetration-style laser senor. A dynamic error compensation method is applied to eliminate the radial runout and wobble of the rotary stage, which have effects on measuring the wafer’s mass center. The accuracy is improved through two steps: firstly, a coarse alignment is made by adjusting the mass center; secondly, a precise alignment is processed by aligning the wafer’s notch. Experiments show that the accuracy of the wafer prealigner satisfied the system requirement

An industrial robot for thin‐type space solar cells bonding

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a serial produced industrial robot for thin‐type space solar cells (SSC), which is applied to perform the bonding process of SSC.Design/methodology/approach – An optimized process of adhesive coating and bonding for SSC is designed, based on an analysis of hydromechanics model. In order to perform the process, a novel robot is developed, which mainly consists of a three‐axis Cartesian coordinates motion platform, coating‐and‐bonding device, solar cell and glass cover orientation plate, control system, pneumatic system, constant temperature module, and industrial personal computer software. The coating and bonding operation is based on the three‐axis Cartesian coordinates motion and the help of pneumatic system.Findings – Compared with the experimental prototype and handwork, the robot is more effective and reliable for the bonding process of the thin‐type solar cells.Originality/value – The robot is very useful to realize automatic production of SSC.

The auto‐cooking system for Chinese traditional dishes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a new auto‐cooking industrial system for the Chinese food industry.Design/methodology/approach – First, the paper introduces a robotic system with the redundant control functions based on the embedded RISC fieldbus control system IP core. Second, the data acquisition of the advanced cooks operation procedure is used to get the teaching knowledge in the different cooking actions for the typical Chinese dishes. Finally, according to the teaching‐playback method, the auto‐cooking procedure for the complex Chinese dishes is completed well.Findings – It is found that the new auto‐cooking system can cook many Chinese traditional dishes with high quality.Practical implications – The robot is applicable to cooking automatically for the Chinese food industry.Originality/value – The auto‐cooking industrial system has been developed with the programming method for the cooking actions.

Kinematic Analysis of 5-DOF Hybrid Parallel Robot

In this paper, a new type of 5-DOF hybrid parallel robot is introduced. The architecture of the mechanism is comprised of two rotations attached to the movable platform of a traditional 3-DOF Delta robot. The 5-DOF hybrid parallel robot has larger working space than Delta Robot and can be widely used in many fields. The forward and inverse kinematics of the hybrid robot was established. Then, the experiment was taken to prove its feasibility.