Two weeks ago, Engadget / CrunchGear posted videos of RAPUDA (Robotic Arm for Persons with Upper limb DisAbilities) from AIST's Intelligent Systems Research Institute -- a wheelchair-mounted, light-weight robot arm with a prominent telescoping link that was demonstrated grasping a cup from a table, lifting the cup for drinking, and grasping an object from the floor via teleoperation (video embedded below). Given my proclivity for clever mechanisms, I wanted details about the telescoping link, specifically to determine how it compares to the Geosystems Situational Awareness Mast (aka Zippermast). Well, I found what I was looking for: a Japanese patent application for "Linearly Moving Extendable Mechanism and Robot Arm Equipped with Linearly Moving Extendable Mechanism." Basically, the telescoping segment consists of a series of small interlocking modules that are expelled (or reeled-in) through the "shoulder" link. Check out the pictures -- cool stuff!
The video embedded below is rather long (5 minutes), but a quick glance at these scenes tells the whole story:
Grasping a Cup from Table |
Lifting a Cup for Drinking |
Grasping Object from Floor |
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Images from the Japanese patent application are quite telling:
I like the mechanism's concept, but I'm less enthusiastic about the large storage cylinder for the segments -- that's the beauty of the Zippermast solution: it "rolls up" like a tape measure inside the base, allowing for extreme telescoping (8 in. profile to 8 ft. extension). A side-by-side of the systems is shown below with RAPUDA (left) and Zippermast (right):
