Structure Design and Workspace Calculation of

6-DOF Underwater Manipulator

Asghar khan Wang Li Quan

CEAST Islamabad College of Mechanical Engineering, HEU, Harbin
Islamabad, Pakistan Harbin, China
asgharJillan305@hotmail.com wangliquan@hrbeu.edu.cn

Abstract- This paper describes the structure design of a 6- Underwater robotic manipulators are very useful in
DOF (Degree of Freedom) underwater robotic manipulator arm examination, retrieval, inspection and repair of underwater
and the analysis of its workspace. Robotic arm very closely structures [3-4]. The exploration and utilization of underwater
resemble human hand and its design is based on the principle of resources is increased due to the decrease of land resources. In
human hand. The structure of the manipulator arm consists of the underwater exploration field, numerous researches and
shoulder, elbow and wrist. The robotic manipulator arm works
experiments are carried out for the exploitation of these
underwater more safely and for longer time as it does not
resources. A large number of ROVs ( Remotely Operated
breathe like human. The arm is designed for underwater
Vehicles) and AUVs ( Automated Underwater Vehicles) with
applications of pick and place, inspection and welding and other
propeller type thruster are developed and employed worldwide.
related work. The manipulator is 6-DOF serial robotic arm, like
But these vehicles cannot work precisely in situations such as
other common industrial robotic manipulator. It has 6 joints,
hydrothermal ore deposit exploration, underwater structure
which are all of revolute type. The manipulator structure is
maintenance and so on [5].
designed such that all links are connected in series by DC motor­
actuated joints from base to an end-effector. The material of the Nuclear robot is a type of underwater robot because it
links and joint shell is selected water resistant and all the joints
operates underwater. Xiaojun Zhang et.al developed an
are made waterproof by using both static and dynamic sealing.
underwater robot for inspection and maintenance of nuc1ear
The motors and reducers are selected for each joint on the basis
power plant reactor. It was designed to work in 20m deep
of static moment balance approach. The structure of the
water. [6]. Wang Liquan et.al developed a master-slave 6-DOF
manipulator arm is modeled in pro-e modeling software. The
manipulator for Steam Generator chamber of nuclear power
workspace of the manipulator is calculated using both the
generator. It is used for eddy current inspection, maintenance,
MATLAB Robotics toolbox and graphical method. The toolbox
gives the 3-D workspace while the graphical method gives the 2-D
ultrasound inspection, plugging and sleeving of water chamber
workspace in horizontal and vertical plane. of nuclear steam generator [7]. Mohammad Jafar.S et.al
worked on fuzzy logic for redundancy resolution of underwater
Keywords- Structure design, Workspace, Underwater manipulator during a welding mission under sea [8].
manipulator, Degree o[ [reedom, Robotics toolbox
In this paper, we have discussed design of robotic
manipulator arm based on the puma560, but with some
I. INTRODUCTlON modification in its structure. The lengths of the links are
Robotic manipulators are imitating human, and are adjusted such that to support the various load conditions of the
anthropomorphic in nature, their design resemble human hand. manipulator. Unimation PUMA560 is a robot with 6-DOF and
Like human hand it consists of shoulder, elbow and wrist and all joints are revolute joints. For these robots the joint axes of
work like human hand [1]. Robotic manipulators work like joint 4, joint 5 and joint 6 have a common intersection point.
human and sometime better, economical and faster than
The manipulator is designed for shallow water operation of
human. With the recent technological advancement in
up to 20m depth. The main tasks performed by manipulator are
underwater systems, the research and development of
welding, pick and place operation and inspection. Overall
underwater robotic manipulator is highly desirable.
weight of manipulator is approximately 60Kg and overall
Optimized structure design for robotic manipulator is to length is 1.2m. It is designed for payload capacity of 20Kg
meet some criteria concerning dimension, shape, material and with positioning precision of Imm. Figure 1 shows 3-D CAD
to adjust these to the functional requirements. These are not to model of the manipulator.
oversize the structure, maintaining stability and security of
operation and to adjust the material and its shape with these
mentioned criteria. Correlating these criteria with the kinematic
model of the joints, determined the loads at all joints and
making a dynamic model to determine the behavior from this
point of view [2].

978-1-4673-9073-6/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

Proceedings of 2017 14th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST) 651
Islamabad, Pakistan, 10th -14th January, 2017
 joint6
jointS

Joint2

Joint3 Fig. 2. Manipulator links length shown in the structure

In Robotics the problem of forward kinematics is the

joint!
determination of the position and orientation of end-effector
with reference to the base of manipulator, given the values of
joint variables. In the case of revolute or rotational joints the
Fig. I. Manipulator 3-D CAD model
joint variables are the angles between the links of the
manipulator. The purpose of forward kinematic analysis is to
11. STRUCTURE DESIGN OF MANIPULATOR ARM [md out the collective resulting effect of the whole set of joint
variables. MATLAB Robotics Toolbox is used for the
All joints and links of manipulator are interconnected in
validation of forward kinematic model. Numerical results
series alternatively, in such a way that starting from joint at
along with visual plot of position and orientation of
base to link at end. All the links of the manipulator consist of
manipulator arm in MATLAB environment gives c1ear insight
Aluminum. We have selected Aluminum for the material of
of its kinematic behavior. For various angle set as input to the
links because of its light weight, corrosion resistant property
developed forward kinematics model in MATLAB Robotics
and good machinability. Density of Aluminum is one third that
toolbox, corresponding results have been plotted and
of steel, giving advantage in low weight structure yet having
compared.
good strength. It is very easily worked using the process of
milling, drilling, cutting, bending, etc. Moreover, the energy
required for machining operations is very low. For Aluminum
corrosion resistance in water is very good. This feature is
because of spontaneous formation of thin and effective layer of
oxide on the surface of Aluminum which protect its surface
from additional oxidation. Link length detail is given below in
table 1 and figure 2 as shown below. Each joint has a specific
rotation range which is given in table 2.
0.5

TABLE l. LINKS LENGTH FOR MANIPULATOR

o

Link No I 2 3 4 5 6
-0.5

Link length/mm 200 400 200 200 150 50

-1

TABLE TI. ALL JOINTS ROTATION RANGE

Joint No 1 2 3 4 5 6
Range -0.5

of -1
-1
±160° -60-150 -140-140 ±180 -120-120 ±180
rotation
(degree)
Fig. 3. Plot for joint angle configuration [000000] using Robotics toolbox

Proceedings of 2017 14th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST) 652
Islamabad, Pakistan, 10th -14th January, 2017
 All the links of the manipulator are of various lengths based
on the payload and torque requirements for various joints. All
Joints use DC torque motor drive to power harmonie reducer in
joints. These DC motors have fast response, low speed, high
torque, good Iinearity, small torque fluctuations. The structure
is simple, compact and can be used as high-precision servo
system power components, and also has the advantage of easy
integration to other components. Harmonie drive is a flexible
element, elastically deformed to transmit the motion and
power. Harmonie reducer consists of three basic components:
circular spline, flex spline and wave generator. The flex spline
and circular spline can be rotated as a wheel, used for good
reduction ratio. Harmonic reducer having a backlash, high
accuracy, large carrying capacity, transmission ratio, high
efficiency and smooth transmission often used to drive the
robot joints practically, getting excellent service requirements.
Selection of the above described elements meets
requirements of a stable robot articulation. At the same time
torque motor and harmonic reducer are integrated easily with
joint structures, fulfill the compact design requirements. The
internat structure of joint is shown in figure 4.
Torque required for each motor is determined using static
moment balance approach. According to this principle "When
a body is balanced about a pivot, the resulting torque of the
forces on one side of the pivot must balance the resulting
torque of the forces on the other side". This calculation is
carried out for payload of 20 kg. As the maximum loading is
experienced in horizontal fully extended pose,
maximum possible value for the design purpose. Factor of
safety is taken 2 because inefficiencies in the actuators and
joints must be taken into consideration [9]. This factor of safety
is torque based criterion for acceptance.
After calculating torque (r) for each joint, we obtained
these values for manipulator joints
T3= 200 N.m T2=400 N.m
T4= T5= 80 N.m T6=30 N.m
Fig. 4. Detailed internal structure of the joint
Proceedings of 2017 14th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST)
Islamabad, Pakistan, 10th -14th January, 2017
Fig. 5. Manipulator horizontal fully extended pose
It is obvious from calculation that the maximum torque is
experienced by joint2 as in the case of PUMA560, which must
the be the strongest joint in the manipulator. We have tried our
best to select the minimum types of motors and reducers for the
arm to make the design easy and simple. It also makes the
serviceability and maintainability of the manipulator easier.
We have selected the locally produced motors, reducers and
encoders for each joint. To prevent misalignment between
manipulator shaft and encoder and to protect the shaft encoder
from excessive mechanical stress, flexible coupling is used.
Manipulator joint housing and other structural parts must
have low weight good strength, high toughness and corrosion
resistance. We used 6061 Aluminum alloy for this purpose.
taking Each joint is designed independently, it is easy to repair
maintain and clean. Moreover a single joint failure does not
make the whole robot fail, increasing the reliability of the
robot.
The waterproof mechanism is most important thing to
develop an underwater robot because the electronic and
electrical components are very sensitive to water and may
damage on exposure to water. We have used the O-ring for
static sealing. For dynamic sealing we used the SPGO rings.
The overall structure of the manipulator is shown in figure 6.
The manipulator is fixed on a movable platform to move from
place to place underwater.
Fig. 6. Overall structure of the manipulator
653
 III. WORKSPACE CALCULATlON

Workspace detennination for manipulators is very

important as it affects directly manipulator motion and
cooperation capabilities. Accurate calculation of workspace
and its envelope periphery is of acute importance due to its
impact on manipulator design, its deployment in an
environment and its dexterousness [10]. Within its range total
volume swept out by the end-effector, as it performs all
possible motions is called workspace of manipulator. The
envelope of workspace is defmed by the class of joints, their
range of motion and links length. Dimensions and range of this
envelope and loads on manipulator within this envelope are of
prime consideration in the mechanical design of manipulator.
Manipulators with revolute joints generally work dexterously
and better in the central area of work envelopes than at
extremes [11]. We use graphical method and MATLAB
Robotics Toolbox method for calculation of workspace of the
manipulator arm .

A. Graphical Method Fig. 8. 2 -D Workspace of the "UWM" in horizontal plane.

For 6 joint manipulator the end position is detennined by

the fIrst three joints. To detennine manipulator workspace
graphically, we take the fIrst three joints. It not only meet the
requirements, but also to make the solution process simple.
Eachjoint of the manipulator has its range of movement, which
defmes boundary, the inner boundary of the work space. Under
normal circumstances, a joint fIxed, another joint rotation
produces an arc. Numerous arc segments are connected, in the
spatial domain, according to the link and joint parameters of
the manipulator. It give boundary coordinate values , thereby
obtaining a vertical plane and horizontal plane showing its
range of motion as shown in fIgure 7 and fIgure 8.
Manipulator end-effector boundary is shown red, in the
inner vertical plane longitudinal external height of up to
1000mm, rotating half the arc, while the internal arc R274mm
only within reach from the horizontal plane, the operating
range of the manipulator is very wide, can achieve underwater
operation.
B. MATLAB Robotics Toolbox method
We use MATLAB Robotics toolbox to develop a program
for creating workspace of the underwater manipulator. Using
the approach of 'fkine' for our underwater manipulator and
function "plot" we develop a 3-D workspace. To calculate the
end-effector's position and plot it used the "surf' function.
This consists of an outer layer representing the maximum reach
of the robot and an inner core representing the arm rotation.
The 3-D workspace is shown in fIgure 9.

Fig. 7. 2 -D Workspace of the "UWM" in vertical plane.

-1

Fig. 9. 3 -D Workspace of the of underwater manipulator arm

Proceedings of 2017 14th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST) 654
Islamabad, Pakistan, 10th -14th January, 2017
 IV. CONCLUSION
Having the desired payload capacity and maximum reach
capability we designed the structure of the manipulator. For
this purpose we first made a simple structure which defined the
links length and joint position. Then according to the structure
and payload capacity we calculated the torque for each joint.
After torque calculation we selected motor and reducer from
the market. As the manipulator is for underwater operations, so
we made it waterproof. For this purpose we used both static
and dynamic sealing compatible with the joints. After the
structure design is completed we calculated the workspace of
the manipulator. For determining the workspace we used
graphical method and MATLAB robotics toolbox software. In
graphical method we got vertical view and horizontal view in
2-D. In the second method we got a 3-D view of the
workspace, consisting of two layers. The outer layer represents
the maximum reach while the inner core layer consisted of arm
motion. Secondly for revolute joint manipulator the inner core
is denser than outside representing the dexterity in the inner
region than the outer.
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