Title: Structural design and performance analysis of moving mechanism of insulator inspection robot

Authors: S.J. Li; Q. Yang; M. Geng; H.G. Wang; X.P. Li

Addresses: College of Mechanical Engineering & Automation, Northeastern University and State Key Laboratory of Robotics of China, No. 3-11, Wenhua Road, Heping District, Shenyang Liaoning 110819, P.R. China ' College of Mechanical Engineering & Automation, Northeastern University and State Key Laboratory of Robotics of China, No. 3-11, Wenhua Road, Heping District, Shenyang Liaoning 110819, P.R. China ' College of Mechanical Engineering & Automation, Northeastern University and State Key Laboratory of Robotics of China, No. 3-11, Wenhua Road, Heping District, Shenyang Liaoning 110819, P.R. China ' State Key Laboratory of Robotics of China, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, P.R. China ' College of Mechanical Engineering & Automation, Northeastern University, No. 3-11, Wenhua Road, Heping District, Shenyang Liaoning 110819, P.R. China

Abstract: The insulator is a part of high-voltage power transmission lines. The security and reliability of power system are mainly determined by safe working of insulator. Moving mechanism of insulator inspection robot is developed to inspect potential risk and operating status of insulator, which has important application value in power engineering. Considering the working condition of insulator and mobile program of existing inspection robot, a novel foot-simulated moving mechanism of insulator inspection robot is proposed. Mobile program and structural configuration are determined, structural parameters are designed and kinematics and statics analysis are completed. Finally, a 3D virtual prototyping of the moving mechanism is built with modelling software package Solidworks 2010, practical moving process on insulator string of the mechanism is simulated with a virtual prototyping software package Adams, kinematics and statics performance are calculated by simulation. The simulation results verify structural rationality of the moving mechanism and correctness of performance analysis proposed in this paper.

Keywords: inspection robots; insulator inspection; kinematic analysis; moving mechanisms; structural design; structural design; performance evaluation; robot design; mechanism design; power engineering; robot kinematics; 3D virtual prototyping; modelling; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMRS.2016.081114

International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, 2016 Vol.3 No.2/3, pp.175 - 192

Received: 30 Jul 2015
Accepted: 17 Mar 2016
Published online: 23 Dec 2016 *

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