Design of a Novel Twisted-Scissor Structure for a Foldable Robot Arm

摘要

This paper presents a novel design of a foldable scissor structure introducing twisting of scissor structure on each other to enhance bending strength of traditional scissor structure. The twisted-scissor structure (TSS) was built on designing S-shape links using a linkage design approach. TSS consists of a series of S-shape metamorphic segments (MSs). Each segment is composed of S-shape links and a revolute joint node as a key segment in a foldable twisted-scissor mechanism for mobility bifurcation, which changes its shape from compact to fully extended. A series of simulations in the vertical and horizontal working situation is performed. The simulation results of TSS with the parallel-scissor structure (PSS) were analyzed and compared. TSS shows double bending strength than the PSS. At last, based on design and simulation results, a prototype of TSS was developed and successfully demonstrated its feasibility.