This paper deals with the paddle type end of arm tool for rescue robot instead of rescue worker in dangerous environments such as fire, earthquake, national disaster and defense. It is equipped at the dual arm manipulator of the rescue robot to safely lift up an injured person. It consists of the paddle for lifting person, sensors for detecting insertion of person onto the paddle, sensor for measuring the tilting angle of the paddle, and mechanical compliance part for preventing incidental injuries. The electronics is comprised of the DAQ module to acquire the sensors data, the control module to treat the sensors data and to manage the errors, and the communication module to transmit the sensors data. After optimally designing the mechanical and electronical parts, we successfully made the paddle type end of arm tool and evaluated its performance by using specially designed jigs. The developed paddle type end of arm tool is going to be applied to the rescue robot for performance verification through field testing.
Robot arms are being increasingly used in various fields with special attention given to unmanned systems. In this research, we developed a high payload dual-arm robot, in which the forearm module is replaceable to meet the assigned task, such as object handling or lifting humans in a rescue operation. With each forearm module specialized for an assigned task (e.g. safety for rescue and redundant joints for object handling task), the robot can conduct various tasks more effectively than could be done previously. In this paper, the design of the high payload dual-arm robot with replaceable forearm function is described in detail. Two forearms are developed here. Each of forearm has quite a different goal. One of the forearms is specialized for human rescue in human familiar flat aspect and compliance parts. Other is for general heavy objects, more than 30 kg, handling with high degree of freedom more than 7.
Dual arm manipulators have been developed for the entertainment purpose such as humanoid type or the industrial application such as automatic assembly. Nowadays, there are some issues for applying the dual arm robot system into the various fields. Especially, robots can substitute human and perform the dangerous activity such as search and rescue in the battle field or disaster. In the paper, the dual arm manipulator which can be adapted to the rescue robot with the mobile platform was developed. The kinematic design was proposed for the rescue activity and the required specification was determined through the kinematic analysis and the dynamic analysis in the various conditions. The proposed dual arm manipulator was manufactured based on the vibration analysis result and its performance was proved by the experiment.