To address the limitations of existing external pipeline inspection robots, including a narrow range of adaptable pipe diameters and difficulty traversing obstacles like cross-pipelines, a novel wheel-clamping robot capable of circumferential rotation was designed. The composite drive mechanism of the robot adopts a dual-slider multi-link mechanism to realize the rapid switching of the two motion modes of the robot axis: forward and circumferential rotation. Following clarification of the robotic mechanism and component dimensions, a geometric model of key points was established, determining an adaptable pipeline diameter range of 74–203 mm. The force analysis was carried out to analyze the working state of the robot axis forward and circumferential rotation, and the minimum driving torque required to complete the above two motions is 0.84 and 1.23 N·m, respectively. Finally, the robot prototype was made, and the experiments of the prototype running on the pipeline were carried out. The experimental results show that the average speed of the robot is 0.195 m/s when it is moving along the axis on the pipeline, and it stably navigates obstacles through circumferential rotation, smoothly crossing T-shaped pipelines of different diameters, which is adaptable to the complex pipeline working conditions.

Aerospace represents the development of national science and technology. It is an important foundation for exploring space and an important guarantee for the construction of aerospace power. There are many large workpieces in the aerospace field. The box insulation layer of large workpieces is an important processing problem. A new thick processing equipment is proposed to process the box insulation layer of large workpieces. The thick processing equipment consists of the XYZ shaft long guide rail and five degrees of freedom (5-DOF) RAPA. The mechanical structure of the 5-DOF RAPA is a redundantly actuated parallel mechanism (RAPM). Meanwhile, this paper proposes a new method to design 5-DOF redundantly actuated parallel mechanisms (RAPMs) with large output rotational angles. Based on configuration evolution and Li group, two articulated moving platforms (AMPs) and four kinds of limbs are designed, and a series of 3T2R (T represents translation, R represents rotation) RAPMs and 2T3R RAPMs are synthesized. To verify the designed RAPMs with large angle, an example of RAPMs, 4UPS-{2UPR}-R is analyzed. To ensure that the RAPM has no mechanism vibration impact in movement, this paper represents the RAPM adopts a newly proposed trajectory planning method. The results show that the 4SPU-(2UPR)R mechanism possesses large angles and verifies the efficiency of the new proposed trajectory planning method in simplified trajectories. This work lays the foundation for processing the box insulation layer of large workpieces with straight lines and arcs paths.

This article presents modelling, simulation, and development of a wall-climbing robot based on coupled wheel and arm-type locomotion mechanism. The developed robot consists of two mobile modules connected with a robot arm mechanism. The actuation of the robot arm is inspired by inchworm locomotion, particularly during wall-to-wall transition, obstacle avoidance, and uneven surface locomotion. Easiness in the interchanging of wheel to arm and vice versa makes the robot more effective compared to previously developed wall-climbing robots. The kinematic and dynamic model for the proposed coupled wheel and arm locomotion concept has been established. A combination of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and proportional, integral, derivatives (PID) feedback control algorithm has been developed using MATLAB to simulate the different cases of robot motions. The developed prototype of the wall-climbing robot is used to verify the coupled wheel and arm locomotion concept in various wall climbing scenarios. The simulation and experimental findings show good comparisons and validate the model-based design of the wall-climbing robot.

The system here described has the capability of generating range images that include robot motion. The system has two main modules, the motion and the image generator. Motion is modeled using a Bezier's curve method. To compute a range value corresponding to a pixel image, the robot position in the coordinated system is obtained from trajec-tory generation. In this way, distortion is produced in the image, or sequence of images, as a consequence of motion. The obtained range images represent scenes perceived by the robot from a specific location or during a specified dis-placement in a very “real” view.