Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!sgiblab!swrinde!pipex!uknet!festival!ainews!ruby!markwr
From: markwr@ruby.ed.ac.uk (Mark Wright)
Subject: Re: Q: Hyper-reduntant robot arms?
Message-ID: <CtCp9B.FpH@aisb.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: news@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Network News Administrator)
Reply-To: markwr@ruby.ed.ac.uk (Mark Wright)
Organization: Dept of AI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
References:  <30ltmj$qc7@cc.tut.fi>
Distribution: inet
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 16:46:23 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <30ltmj$qc7@cc.tut.fi>, jr77937@proffa.cc.tut.fi (R{ty Jarkko) writes:
# Has anyone any ideas about hyper-reduntant (very high DoF, snake-like,
# tentacle, elephant trunk, etc.) robot arms? We need a robot arm which
# is able to avoid obstacles and can get into place where it is impossible
# for conventional robot arms. The use of the arm would be inspection 
# work (with endoscope or CCD camera) in nuclear power stations 
# as a part of teleoperated inspection vehicle.
# 
# So, all the information concerning 'snake-like' robot arms
# is welcome. Thanx,
#                     Jarkko     
# 
# --
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
#  M.Sc. Jarkko Raty  (77937@ae.tut.fi)   Tampere University of Technology  
#                                 	Control Engineering Laboratory
#   tel. +358 31 3162666                  P.O. box 527, FIN-33101 Tampere
#   FAX  +358 31 3162340                  FINLAND  
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 
# 


B.N.F.L (British Nuclear Fuels Ltd) have just such an arm which they
feed down pipes and then hold in position at the entry to a tank so
they can inspect/repair the inside of the tank.  They are based at a
place which used to be called Windscale but which got changed to
Sellafield because of bad press, its in Cumbria, England.

Also check out the "Spine" paint spraying robot, but this has a 
large base attached.

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 Mark Wright				email: markwr@aifh.ed.ac.uk   
 Department of Artificial Intelligence   telephone: 031-650-4504 (lab) 
 Forrest Hill					   031-650-3087       
 University of Edinburgh                       Fax: 031-650-6899      
 Edinburgh			            Telex: 727442 (UNIVED G)  
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