Objective
Objectives
The "TELEMAN 14 - TALOS" project was to develop and test new concepts for locomotion devices to be used for future intervention robots. Existing nuclear robots are limited to very simple missions of inspection and sample collection in cases of major accidents. The extension of these missions to more complex operations such as decontamination, maintenance, etc, requires large increases in volume and mass of robot payloads. Locomotion concepts and technologies were to be redesigned to combine these requirements with the severe geometrical constraints of nuclear facilities.
New concepts for locomotion devices have been developed and tested for use in future intervention robots.
The research has achieved the following results:
demonstration of the train like vehicle concept for moving in a very cluttered environment, climbing stairs, and having a high specific payload carrying capacity in terms of mass and volume compared to a monobody vehicle of the same performance;
validation of the mechanical design of the linkage mechanism between the body modules, with the incorporation of an additional active steering axis for stability;
development and comparative testing of wheels and tracks with extendable claws and active tripod wheel undercarriages and selection of the tripod design because of its nonslip performance while climbing and descending stairs.
To demonstrate feasibility, a prototype with 2 actively linked body modules was designed and built. The multibody vehicle with active linkages has proven itself able to follow complex trajectories in follow the leader mode even on narrow corridors or stairs. Each module remains upright during negotiation of stairs, ramps, and high obstacles.
Exploitation
The concept has been partly protected by a CEA patent. Because of its ease of control by human operators, the tripod whell undercarriage design shows the strongest potential for exploitation, while the tracked locomotion system with extendable claws is more suited to short range inspection in highly obstructed environments under direct tele-operated control. The results of the project will be exploited through further development and integration of a four module vehicle for industrial testing in the TELEMAN TM50 - MESSINA robust intervention research machine project.
Work to be done
"TELEMAN 14 - TALOS" was to deal with two major aspects of the mechanical engineering of locomotion devices. The first one was the proof of the principle of multibody articulated vehicles suited to the real geometrical constraints within a nuclear facility. Emphasis was to be laid on the optimisation of the design of an articulated link and the associated tests. The articulation was to be active rather than passive in order to make the two linked cylindrical modules follow the same trajectory. Tests of a full scale mock-up were to be performed on a flat cluttered floor with corridors and chicanes and on stairs and oblique slopes. Extension to a vehicle with three or four modules was also to be considered. The second aspect was to be the proof of the principle of safer and more efficient devices for over-iding obstacles. Conventional wheels or tracks were to be equipped with extensible claws and a full scale mock-up was to be manufactured according to relevant criteria (simplicity, decontamination, eff ciency in different configurations and for different kinds of obstacles such as stairs, small walls, ladders, air-locks, etc).
Test strategy
A full scale integrated mock-up was to be manufactured during the last phase of the project. Tests were to be performed in representative environments derived from the user recommendations.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Coordinator
92265 Fontenay-aux-Roses
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.