Title: Semicircular duplex manipulator for rescue operation: size and weight reduction

Authors: Kazuyuki Ito; Soichiro Kimura

Addresses: Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Hosei University, 3-7-2, Koganei, Tokyo, 184-8584, Japan ' RION Co., Ltd., 3-2-41 Higashimotomachi, Kokubunji, Tokyo 185-8533, Japan

Abstract: To prevent secondary disasters and to emphasise searching ability, the utilisation of robots for rescue operations has attracted considerable attention. However, when operating in completely collapsed wooden houses, conventional rescue mobile robots cannot pass through spaces in the rubble because the size of these spaces is very small. Hence, the development of an endoscope-type rescue robot that is more mobile is necessary. In this study, we redesigned our previous rescue manipulator by downsizing its body while maintaining robustness. As a result, we developed a new small-sized duplex manipulator, and successfully reduced its cross-sectional diameter by 50% and its weight by 75%.

Keywords: rescue manipulators; duplex mechanism; semicircular manipulators; passive manipulators; rescue operations; rescue robots; size reduction; weight reduction; collapsed wooden houses; mobile robots; endoscope-type robots; robot design; manipulator design; rubble; emergency management; disaster response; passive robots.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAMECHS.2016.082628

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems, 2016 Vol.7 No.2, pp.104 - 113

Received: 21 Mar 2016
Accepted: 27 Sep 2016
Published online: 03 Mar 2017 *

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