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Design and Development of a Slender Dual-Structure Continuum Robot for In-Situ Aeroengine Repair

Wang, Mingfeng; Palmer, David; Dong, Xin; Alatorre, David; Axinte, Dragos; Norton, Andy

Authors

David Palmer

David Alatorre

DRAGOS AXINTE dragos.axinte@nottingham.ac.uk
Professor of Manufacturing Engineering

Andy Norton



Abstract

© 2018 IEEE. In-situ aeroengine maintenance works (e.g. inspection, repair) are highly beneficial as it can significantly reduce currently accepted maintenance cycle which is extensive and costly due to the need to remove engines from the wing of an aircraft. However, feeding in/out via inspection ports and performing a multi-axis movement of an end-effector in a very constrained environment such as aeroengine combustion chamber is a fairly challenging task. This paper presents the design and development of a highly slender (i.e., low diameter-to-length ratio) dual-structure continuum robot with 16 degrees of freedom (DoFs) to provide the feeding motion needed to navigate into confined environments and then perform a required configuration shape for further repair operation. This continuum robot is a compact system and presents a set of innovative mechatronic solutions such as: (i) two-stage tendon-driven structure with bevelled disk design to perform required configuration shape and to provide selective stiffness for the ability of taking high payloads; (ii) various compliant joints to enable different flexibility requirement in each stage; (iii) three commanding cables for each 2- DoF section to minimise the number of actuators with a precise actuation. To be able to achieve the desired configuration shape, a kinematic model has been established and the configuration-cable kinematics has been implemented. Finally, the continuum robot has been built and tested for performing the predefined configuration shape.

Citation

Wang, M., Palmer, D., Dong, X., Alatorre, D., Axinte, D., & Norton, A. (2018). Design and Development of a Slender Dual-Structure Continuum Robot for In-Situ Aeroengine Repair. Proceedings of the ... IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 5648-5653. https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2018.8594142

Journal Article Type Conference Paper
Conference Name IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
Start Date Oct 1, 2018
End Date Oct 5, 2018
Acceptance Date Jun 29, 2018
Publication Date Dec 27, 2018
Deposit Date Aug 3, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
Print ISSN 2153-0858
Electronic ISSN 2153-0866
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Pages 5648-5653
DOI https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2018.8594142
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/927954
Publisher URL https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8594142
Related Public URLs https://www.iros2018.org/
Additional Information Paper from 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (1-5 October 2018, Madrid, Spain).

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© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.




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