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Experiences in the development of a teleoperated parallel robot for aerial line maintenance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2011

Cecilia Garcia*
Affiliation:
Centre for Automation and Robotics UPM – CSIC, Ronda de Valencia, 3 (28012), Madrid, Spain
Roque Saltaren
Affiliation:
Centre for Automation and Robotics UPM – CSIC, Jose Gutierrez Abascal, 2 (28006), Madrid, Spain
Rafael Aracil
Affiliation:
Centre for Automation and Robotics UPM – CSIC, Jose Gutierrez Abascal, 2 (28006), Madrid, Spain
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: cecilia.garcia@upm.es

Summary

This paper presents the teleoperation of a parallel robot based on the Stewart–Gough platform. The robot is an experimental prototype capable of sliding along electrical lines in order to carry out different inspection and maintenance tasks. The paper also describes the kinematic equations of the parallel robot and their solution. The teleoperation of the prototype took place in a testing bank developed in the laboratory and containing the basic elements of electrical lines. The operator who performs the task uses a six degrees-of-freedom master-arm with force reflection, which also has an image-viewing system providing the operator with stereoscopic vision and allowing him/her to calibrate the information of the local station simulator with the real environment through the blending of images. The paper also presents the results of the laboratory experiments of the robot sliding along a line.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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Footnotes

The authors are with the Department of Automatica, Ing. Electronica e Inf. Industrial, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain (e-mail: mferre@etsii.upm.es).

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