Snake-arm robots see where endoscopes can't go
An
OC Robotics product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Aug 18, 2008
Companies can significantly reduce their H and S costs by using snake-arm robots to conduct confined spaces operations.
Snake-arm robots enable personnel to conduct work remotely from outside the hazard area.
In many cases snake-arm robots also offer the potential to speed up processes, especially where the space restrictions prevent employees from working efficiently.
Under the Confined Spaces Regulations 1997, before a person can enter a confined space, the employer must carry out risk assessments, training and take numerous safety measures.
All of these precautions add up to more expenditure to the company the more time is spent working in confined spaces.
Conventional industrial robots are virtually impossible to manoeuvre in cluttered environments and flexible endoscopes don't always go where you want them to.
Snake-arm robots are flexible robotic arms that don't have elbows, so they can follow a path into confined spaces.
With a snake-arm robot the operator needs only to drive the tip of the arm around obstacles using a tip-mounted camera and the software will control the rest of the arm to follow where the tip has gone.
This makes controlling these devices simple and easy to learn.
A snake-arm robot is effectively a controllable endoscope which can snake into awkward or cluttered environments to conduct real work.
OC Robotics has developed a snake-arm robot that is 12.5mm in diameter and 610mm in length.
The arm is the smallest snake-arm robot to date and uncoils out of a briefcase-sized box where it is stowed.
The box is fully portable, weighing 10kg excluding internal batteries.
OC Robotics' software enables the arm to be guided by joystick-controlled "nose-following" and runs from a laptop.
Power is supplied via mains, external batteries or internal batteries.
At the tip of the arm is a camera and tool.
The first device of this type was recently delivered to the US Department of Defense for operational evaluation.
It offers the military a new capability of viewing and working inside cluttered spaces - something not previously possible.
OC Robotics' technology is very scalable and snake-arms can be designed to be large and durable as well as small and compliant.
Larger, more rigid snake-arm robots can combine a significant payload with precise positioning and still snake into awkward spaces.
OC Robotics has designed snake-arm robots up to 15m in length to carry substantial payloads for many different industries including aerospace and nuclear.
The small scale of this latest device is also ideal for minimally invasive surgical applications including the up-and-coming field of natural orifice surgery (often called NOTES).
OC Robotics is now taking orders for portable snake-arm robots of this type.
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