A HAND-HELD TENTACLE-LIKE CONCENTRIC TUBE ROBOTIC SYSTEM FOR STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY ASSESSMENT

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1-1-2025

Abstract

Concentric Tube Robots have been explored extensively for a variety of medical and surgical applications such as minimally invasive surgeries, with a maximum length found in the literature of approximately 200 mm. The same basic technology can be applied for tasks in industrial inspection, but the applications require longer robot lengths on the order of 1 m. Because of the additional steerability and control offered by the concentric tube idea, they can outperform traditional borescopes and other commercially available devices for some structural integrity assessment tasks. Concentric tube robots may provide new capabilities to inspect in hard-to-reach places and to deliver parts such as sensors, conductors, and other components, or to perform tasks like spray coating and wire harnessing. In this paper, we introduce and describe the design and testing of a novel handheld, miniaturized, and motorized actuation unit for the concentrically nested tubes to navigate the robot to the desired destination and allow for convenient use in the field by human operators, even with tubes that are much longer than previously designed concentric tube robots. The design concept winds the concentrically nested tubes onto concentrically nested spools to accomplish the independent translation and rotation of each tube in a compact form factor. To prevent buckling of the tubes inside the actuation unit, a novel anti-buckling support mechanism is incorporated. The prototype was successfully operated in a field-inspired lined pipe testbed for validation, and learnings from the test and future work are discussed in this article.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Proceedings of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference

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