Abstract
This paper presents the design and kinematic analysis of a 6-DOF foldable/deployable Delta-like parallel manipulator, with a spherical wrist, for a lightweight Intervention Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (I-AUV). To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first paper to propose the application of a parallel manipulator for underwater vehicles. Most of all underwater manipulators used nowadays are serial. However, parallel manipulators present some interesting features when compared to the serial ones. Lightweight underwater vehicle-manipulator system (UVMS) suffers from disturbances due to several underwater effects, among them, the drag caused by the manipulator motion. When applied to terrestrial and aerial mobile manipulation, parallel manipulators can quickly compensate some disturbances thanks to their geometry (thin links, drives located at the base) and fast motion. Based on these applications and considering that the drag effect can be minimised with a parallel manipulator, this paper proposes a Delta with an optimised geometry, which can be folded for transportation and navigation and deployed for intervention.
Published Version
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