Shoani, Mohamed Tahir (2023) A fixed length single segment soft continuum manipulator for multi-environmental inspection. Doctoral thesis, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia.

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Abstract

Inspection of structures is a regular practice in many industries to determine the condition of the structure in terms of safety and performance. Traditionally, inspection operations were performed by qualified personnel to evaluate the condition of the structure and to determine locations requiring maintenance. However, manual inspection is costly, time-consuming, and may endanger the lives of the inspectors especially in radioactive and poisonous environments. Alternatively, robotic inspection provides a faster, safer, and more cost-effective alternative to human inspection; however, robots are usually limited in their operational domains. Drones and other airborne vehicles are designed for aerial operation, while underwater robots are designed to inspect submerged structures. Additionally, drones, water-surface, and underwater robots are all constrained by their tether or onboard power source. In this work, a teleoperated soft continuum manipulator is implemented, capable of inspecting tall, submerged, and partially submerged structures for prolonged time periods. The manipulator consists of a suspended flexible arm, a part capable of sliding along the arm (referred to as an Arm Constrainer and Tendon Router ‘ACTR’), and a rotatable upper base. Tendon actuation is used to provide high motion resolution as well as the ability to locate the driving motors remotely with respect to the actuated parts (arm and ACTR). Thus, allowing the manipulator arm to be placed in different environments without affecting the actuators or controlling circuitry. The results of the lab experiments illustrate the manipulator’s ability to inspect tall structures with sub-millimeter vertical motion resolution. The experimental results also validated the manipulator’s ability to inspect the different parts (above and below water) of a partially submerged tall structure, represented by an Aluminum pole. Additionally, the manipulator’s modular design facilitates the replacement of its arm with another of different material and geometry, allowing it to be used in different environments. In comparison to soft continuum robots and manipulators (SCRaMs), this manipulator employs fewer actuators than multi-segment SCRaMs and covers a larger workspace than fixed-length single-segment SCRaMs

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