The development of a service manipulator system for simultaneous realization of high safety and dexterity

摘要

In this paper, we propose SSMs (Safety Service Manipulator system) which is developed for achieving high safety and dexterity. The SSMs combines four novel techniques, BRM (Base Redundant Machanism), APCS (Air Pressure Collision detection System), CTLB (Controllable Torque limiter in Base), and a base redundancy, to reduce harmful forces and to achieve high velocity, force, and failure avoidance ability on a service process. BRM is a safer mechanism than SRM (Serial Redundant Mechanism) on pushing force and impact force because it needs less torque for base motors and has globally small equivalent mass. APCS is a flexible whole-body tactile sensor, which is equipped on the surface of the arm-part of SSMs. APCS can reduce impact force effectively not only by giving contact information but also the flexibility itself. Besides, it gives enough space for a brake to decelerate impact velocity before crash. CTLB is a controllable torque limiter installed in the base of SSMs. CTLB enables the arm-part of SSMs to slip when excessive external force is applied to it, which brings the reduction of pushing force. A base redundancy which is provided by BRM can be utilized in control and motion planning to improve the safety and dexterity. We actually develop a prototype of SSMs and MiniSSMs, and execute some experiments to confirm the effectiveness of APCS and CTLB with the MiniSSMs.