• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.89-97
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• 2001

In this paper, we present a new two-dof anthropomorphic joint mechanism that enables to mimic the humanlike motion. The proposed mechanism, called Double Active Universal Joint(DAUJ), generates a two-dof swivel motion without rolling by the coupled motion of two independent motor. In addition, we perform basic experiments to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism and the results are reported.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.121-129
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• 2000

The robotic automation in NonDestructive Testing(NDT) is a promising field of research and it helps to expand the applications of NDT enormously. Especially, in the case of pipelines which are widely used in various industrial facilities, it is required to secure adequate ways of inspection in the usual maintenance activitites. In this paper, we present a robot system for inpipe inspection of underground urban gas pipelines. The robot is configured as an articulated structure like a snake with a tether cable. Two active driving vehicles are located in front and rear of the system, respectively and passive modules such as a NonDestructive Testing module and a control module are chained between the active vehicles. The proposed system has outstanding mobility by employing a new steering mechanism called Double Active Universal Joint, which makes it possible to cope with complicated configurations of underground pipelines. Characteristic features of the system are described and the construction of the system is briefly outlined.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.230-238
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• 2003

In this paper, a three-fingered anthropomorphic robot hand, called SKK Robot Hand 1, is presented. By employing a two-DOF joint mechanism, called Double Active Universal Joint (abbreviated as DAUJ from now on) as its metacarpal joint, the hand makes it possible to mimic humanlike motions. We begin with addressing the motivation of the design and mention how the anthropomorphic feature of a human is realized in the design of SKK Hand I Also, the mechanism of the hand is explained in detail, and advantages in its modular design are discussed. The proposed hand is developed for use as a testbed for dextrous manipulation. It is expected to resolve the increasing demand for robotic applications in unstructured environments. We describe its hardware construction as well as the controller structure including the preliminary results of experiments.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.2030-2039
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• 2001

Recently, various inpipe inspection robots are developed and its effective values are increased in industrial use. However, it is so difficult to make a inpipe inspection robot system which has flexible mobility and accuracy of inspection in pipelines. Especially, it is very important to know the exact crack position. In this paper, we are to present a lately developed inpipe inspection robot system which can resolve the above Problems. The robot is configured as an articulated structure like a snake. Two active driving vehicles are located in front and rear of the inspection robot respectively and passive modules such as a nondestructive testing module and a control module are chained between the active vehicles. Special feature of the robot system is a ground interface, which is able to show informations of robot and pipelines. By using this, so called virtual map in this paper, user is able to know the pipelines'feature and crack position.