TY - GEN
T1 - Mechanical design of cylindrical track for sideways motion
AU - Tadakuma, Kenjiro
AU - Tadakuma, Riichiro
AU - Kinoshita, Hiroaki
AU - Nagatani, Keiji
AU - Yoshida, Kazuya
AU - Udengaard, Martin
AU - Iagnemma, Karl
PY - 2008/12/1
Y1 - 2008/12/1
N2 - In this paper, a novel crawler mechanism for sideways motion is presented. The crawler mechanism is of circular cross-section and has active rolling axes at the center of the circles. Conventional crawler mechanisms can support massive loads, but cannot produce sideways motion. Additionally, previous crawler edges sink undesirably on soft ground, particularly when the vehicle body is subject to a sideways tilt. The proposed design solves these drawbacks by adopting a circular cross-section crawler. A prototype has been developed to illustrate the concept. Motion experiments confirm the novel properties of this mechanism: sideways motion and robustness against edge-sink. Motion experiments, with a test vehicle are also presented.
AB - In this paper, a novel crawler mechanism for sideways motion is presented. The crawler mechanism is of circular cross-section and has active rolling axes at the center of the circles. Conventional crawler mechanisms can support massive loads, but cannot produce sideways motion. Additionally, previous crawler edges sink undesirably on soft ground, particularly when the vehicle body is subject to a sideways tilt. The proposed design solves these drawbacks by adopting a circular cross-section crawler. A prototype has been developed to illustrate the concept. Motion experiments confirm the novel properties of this mechanism: sideways motion and robustness against edge-sink. Motion experiments, with a test vehicle are also presented.
KW - Circular Cross-Section
KW - Crawler
KW - Mechanical Design
KW - Pipe Inspection
KW - Sideways Motion
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=64949089696&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=64949089696&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICMA.2008.4798744
DO - 10.1109/ICMA.2008.4798744
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:64949089696
SN - 9781424426324
T3 - Proceedings of 2008 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, ICMA 2008
SP - 161
EP - 167
BT - Proceedings of 2008 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, ICMA 2008
T2 - 2008 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, ICMA 2008
Y2 - 5 August 2008 through 8 August 2008
ER -