Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
3, SEPTEMBER 1999
I. INTRODUCTION
dual-hand system with six degrees of freedom for manipulating
TABLE I
ELECTROMAGNETIC MOTOR SPECIFICATIONS
Fig. 7. Micro CCD camera head with a mechanical pencil for comparison.
TABLE II
MICRO CAMERA AND LENS SPECIFICATIONS
E. CCD Camera
Fig. 7 shows the micro CCD camera head mounted on the
robot, with a mechanical pencil shown for comparison. The
camera has a 1/4-in color CCD with 410 K pixels. It is 7 mm
in diameter, 12 mm in length, and weights 1.2 g.
This camera head includes the CCD, an optical filtering
glass, a micro optical lens, and a subordinate circuit module.
Fig. 6. Planetary reduction gear drive.
The power supply and drive signals for the CCD, such as for
vertical and horizontal timing, are supplied from the camera
controller through cables. The camera controller incorporates
The flexible film is curved for insertion into the casing ring. digital processing functions such as automatic luminance,
Each coil is of copper wire and has 35 turns. Experimental which controls the iris and the shuttering period, and white
results indicate that the maximum torque is 0.17 N m, and the balance. Images with 470 TV lines in horizontal and 350 TV
maximum energy efficiency is 22% with an applied voltage lines in vertical resolution are obtained, and micro cracks with
of 4 V. 25- m width on pipe surface are easily recognized. Table II
The design of the reduction gear drive is based on a shows the specifications of the camera and lens.
planetary paradox gear mechanism [14]. This design offers To miniaturize the camera head, a new packaging technique
a simple structure which needs no retainer and no bearings, was used, TOG: TAB (tape automated bonding) on glass [15].
while providing a high reduction ratio. Gears, a, b, c, and d in The TOG technique achieves direct bonding of the CCD onto
Fig. 4 have a tooth module of 0.05 and the tooth numbers are the optical filter, as shown in Fig. 8, giving a package size
12, 29, 69, and 72, respectively. Fig. 6 shows a front view of almost the same as the bare CCD chip.
the reduction gear drive. The reduction ratio is 1/162. The optical filter glass cuts out light with wave lengths
A further speed reduction of 1/10 is achieved between the longer than 700 nm. The finished camera head is 7 mm in
output of the reduction gear and the planetary wheel shafts, diameter and 12 mm in length.
SUZUMORI et al.: MICRO INSPECTION ROBOT FOR 1-IN PIPES 289
TABLE III
FMA HAND DRIVE CODES
TABLE V
PNEUMATIC WOBBLE MOTOR SPECIFICATIONS
TABLE IV
SEQUENTIAL DRIVE CODES FOR PNEUMATIC WOBBLE MOTOR
The tooth number of the rotor is less than that of the wobble
ring, and the external surface of the wobble ring is attached
to the internal surface of the wobble generator to allow the
wobble ring only to revolve but not to rotate. Thus, revolution
of the wobble ring causes rotation of the rotor.
The relationship between the rotational speed of the rotor Fig. 12. Mockup pipe for experiment.
and the revolution speed of the wobble ring is obtained
as follows: The robot easily negotiated the pipe from starting point A,
through the two elbows, point B, and also easily recovered 3-
mm cubes of plastic placed at point B. An operator controlled
where and represent the tooth numbers of the rotor and the robot using a control pendant while watching the image
the wobble ring, respectively. received from the camera. Fig. 13 shows images from the
In this design, and thus camera during hand rotation and using the camera to adjust
This means that 35 revolutions of the wobble ring lead to one the orientation with respect to the object. Fig. 2 shows the
rotation of the rotor in the reverse direction. If the friction loss robot carrying the recovered object.
of the meshing were 0, the torque of the wobble ring would The same experiment was carried out in an actual steel
be amplified 35 times. pipe which had been used to supply gas, and the robot again
Table V shows the specifications of the wobble motor. The performed well.
developed motor is 9.4 mm in diameter and 6 mm in length. Other basic experiments show that: 1) 25- m cracks on the
Experimental results show that the maximum torque is 7 pipe surface can be easily recognized by the camera; 2) the
m N m, the maximum speed is 20 r/min, and the stepping maximum travel speed is 6 mm/s and the maximum pulling
resolution is 210 step/rev. The motor is controlled by an open- force is 1 N; and 3) the robot can pull a 5-m cable in a vertical
loop method, and no slip is measured with loads smaller than pipe.
the maximum torque. The maximum torque of this motor
is about 20 times greater than that of an equivalently sized IV. CONCLUSIONS
conventional electromagnetic motor. 1) Miniature devices have been newly designed, developed,
and tested for use in a microrobot capable inspecting of
III. PERFORMANCE AND INSPECTION EXAMPLE 1-in pipes.
An application of the developed robot is described in this a) The micro electromagnetic motor, 5 mm in diam-
section. The experiment was carried out in the mockup pipe eter and 8 mm in length, achieves 0.17 m N m
shown in Fig. 12. The configuration of the mockup is based and is used to drive the wheels.
on an actual pipe. The pipe is of acrylic and has two elbows, b) The micro planetary reduction gear with a 1/162
120 and 150 mm in radius, respectively. The internal diameter reduction ratio is used in combination with the
of the pipe is 25 mm. micro electromagnetic motor.
SUZUMORI et al.: MICRO INSPECTION ROBOT FOR 1-IN PIPES 291
Masanobu Kimura was born in Kanagawa, Japan, Yukihisa Hasegawa was born in Aichi, Japan, in
in 1949. He graduated from Oomori Technical Col- 1963. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in
lege, Tokyo, Japan, in 1968. electrical engineering from Gifu University, Gifu,
He is currently with the Multi Media Engineering Japan, in 1986 and 1988, respectively.
Laboratory, Toshiba Corporation, Yokohama, Japan. He is currently a Research Scientist in the
He joined the Toshiba Corporation in April 1969 and Small Motor Development Center, Manufacturing
worked in the Broadcasting Equipment Division, Engineering Research Center, Toshiba Corporation,
where he was engaged in the development of a Yokohama, Japan. He has been with Toshiba
single-tube color television camera and solid-state Corporation since 1988. His research interests
color video cameras. include actuators, microrobots, and motor-driving
method.