The manufacture and maintenance of large parts in ships, trains, aircrafts, and so on create an increasing demand for mobile machine tools to perform in-situ operations. However, few mobile robots can accommodate the complex environment of industrial plants while performing machining tasks. This study proposes a novel six-legged walking machine tool consisting of a legged mobile robot and a portable parallel kinematic machine tool. The kinematic model of the entire system is presented, and the workspace of different components, including a leg, the body, and the head, is analyzed. A hierarchical motion planning scheme is proposed to take advantage of the large workspace of the legged mobile platform and the high precision of the parallel machine tool. The repeatability of the head motion, body motion, and walking distance is evaluated through experiments, which is 0.11, 1.0, and 3.4 mm, respectively. Finally, an application scenario is shown in which the walking machine tool steps successfully over a 250 mm-high obstacle and drills a hole in an aluminum plate. The experiments prove the rationality of the hierarchical motion planning scheme and demonstrate the extensive potential of the walking machine tool for in-situ operations on large parts.
R Bostelman, T Hong, J Marvel. Survey of research for performance measurement of mobile manipulators. Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2016, 121: 342–366 https://doi.org/10.6028/jres.121.015
3
R Suárez, L Palomo-Avellaneda, J Martinez, et al. Development of a dexterous dual-arm omnidirectional mobile manipulator. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 2018, 51(22): 126–131 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2018.11.529
4
J L Olazagoitia, S Wyatt. New PKM Tricept T9000 and Its Application to Flexible Manufacturing at Aerospace Industry. SAE Technical Paper 2007-01-3820, 2007 https://doi.org/10.4271/2007-01-3820
5
M Law, H Rentzsch, S Ihlenfeldt. Development of a dynamic substructuring framework to facilitate in situ machining solutions using mobile machine tools. Procedia Manufacturing, 2015, 1: 756–767 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2015.09.054
6
B Hazel, J Côté, Y Laroche, et al. In-situ robotic interventions in hydraulic turbines. In: Proceedings of the 2010 1st International Conference on Applied Robotics for the Power Industry. Montreal: IEEE, 2010, 11637498 https://doi.org/10.1109/CARPI.2010.5624460
7
B Hazel, E Boudreault, J Côté, et al. Robotic post-weld heat treatment for in situ repair of stainless steel turbine runners. In: Proceedings of the 2014 3rd International Conference on Applied Robotics for the Power Industry. Foz do Iguassu: IEEE, 2014, 14903693 https://doi.org/10.1109/CARPI.2014.7030051
8
V Collado, J Arana, A Saenz. A Crawling Portable Robot for Drilling Operations in Large Air Frame Components. SAE Technical Paper 2005-01-3337, 2005 https://doi.org/10.4271/2005-01-3337
9
B Marguet, C Cibiel, Ó De Francisco, et al. Crawler Robots for Drilling and Fastener Installation: An Innovative Breakthrough in Aerospace Automation. SAE Technical Paper 2008-01-2292, 2008 https://doi.org/10.4271/2008-01-2292
10
P Pessi, H Wu, H Handroos, et al. A mobile robot with parallel kinematics to meet the requirements for assembling and machining the ITER vacuum vessel. Fusion Engineering and Design, 2007, 82(15–24): 2047–2054 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2007.06.012
11
A Irawan, K Nonami. Optimal impedance control based on body inertia for a hydraulically driven hexapod robot walking on uneven and extremely soft terrain. Journal of Field Robotics, 2011, 28(5): 690–713 https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.20404
12
P G D Santos, E Garcia, J A Cobano, et al. SIL06: A six-legged robot for humanitarian de-mining tasks. In: Proceedings of World Automation Congress. Seville: IEEE, 2004, 15: 523–528
13
N Kashiri, L Baccelliere, L Muratore, et al. CENTAURO: A hybrid locomotion and high power resilient manipulation platform. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2019, 4(2): 1595–1602 https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2019.2896758
14
H Yang, S Krut, F Pierrot, et al. On the design of mobile parallel robots for large workspace applications. In: Proceedings of ASME 2011 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. Volume 6: 35th Mechanisms and Robotics Conference, Parts A and B. Washington, D.C.: ASME, 2011, 767–776 https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2011-48101
15
H Yang, S Krut, C Baradat, et al. Locomotion approach of REMORA: A reonfigurable mobile robot for manufacturing Applications. In: Proceedings of 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. San Francisco: IEEE, 2011: 5067–5072 https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2011.6094897
16
A Rushworth, D Axinte, M Raffles, et al. A concept for actuating and controlling a leg of a novel walking parallel kinematic machine tool. Mechatronics, 2016, 40: 63–77 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechatronics.2016.10.010
17
A Olarra, D Axinte, L Uriarte, et al. Machining with the WalkingHex: A walking parallel kinematic machine tool for in situ operations. CIRP Annals, 2017, 66(1): 361–364 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cirp.2017.04.050
18
Y G Li, H T Liu, X M Zhao, et al. Design of a 3-DOF PKM module for large structural component machining. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 2010, 45(6): 941–954 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechmachtheory.2010.01.008
19
L T Tunc, J Shaw. Experimental study on investigation of dynamics of hexapod robot for mobile machining. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2016, 84: 817–830 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-015-7600-6
20
J D Barnfather, M J Goodfellow, T Abram. Positional capability of a hexapod robot for machining applications. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2017, 89(1–4): 1103–1111 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-016-9051-0
21
T Huang, P F Wang, X M Zhao, et al. Design of a 4-DOF hybrid PKM module for large structural component assembly. CIRP Annals, 2010, 59(1): 159–162 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cirp.2010.03.098
22
Y Pan, F Gao. Kinematic Performance Analysis for Hexapod Mobile Robot Using Parallel Mechanism. In: Proceedings of ASME 2014 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. Volume 5A: 38th Mechanisms and Robotics Conference. Buffalo: ASME, 2014, V05AT08A089 https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2014-34591
23
Z J Chen, F Gao, Y Pan. Novel door-opening method for six-legged robots based on only force sensing. Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2017, 30(5): 1227–1238 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10033-017-0172-7
A B K Rao, P V M Rao, S K Saha. Workspace and dexterity analyses of hexaslide machine tools. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Taipei: IEEE, 2003, 3: 4104–4109 https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBOT.2003.1242228
26
BS EN ISO 9283:1998 Manipulating Industrial Robots—Performance Criteria and Related Test Methods. 1998
