Title of Paper:Super Dragon: A 10 m-long Coupled Tendon-driven

Articulated Manipulator

•Objective and need for mechanism :

The decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants is a national urgent problem in Japan. The target task of this study was
to investigate inside the PCV(primary container vessel) using a 10 m-long articulated manipulator with a measurement device weighing 10 kg
•Significance :
The primary objective was to design and develop a coupled tendon-driven mechanism that can mount all actuators on the base structure. The
mechanism permits us to design a lightweight arm structure while achieving a large payload at the end while attaining a high radiation
resistance.
•Mechanism :
The coupled-tendon driven mechanism can share the gravitational torque by multiple wires, resulting in a
lightweight and compact mechanism
•Conclusion :
They successfully introduced a coupled tendon-driven mechanism and a weight compensation mechanism using synthetic fiber ropes to
design a lightweight, compact, and high-payload manipulator and confirmed its feasibility through basic motion experiments

Inspiration:
1) Design of lighter components of arm with same structural integrity
2) Exploring the possibility of using Bowden cables for actuation in place of the synthetic cables used by them.
 Title of Paper:Minimally Actuated Serial Robot
• Objective and need for mechanism :
The paper proposes the design of a Minimally Actuated Serial Robot (MASR) which combines some characteristics and advantages from both hyper
redundant robots(Hyper redundant robots are robots with serially connected links that possess a large kinematic redundancy) and compliant robots.

• Significance :
The advantages of MASR are its simplicity, smaller weight, higher energy density (power/mass), low cost and modularity, as the number of links and
actuators can be easily and quickly changed.

• Mechanism :
The MASR is a serial robot consisting of multiple links connected by passive joints and of a small number of movable actuators. The actuators
translate over the links to any given joint and adjust it to the desired angular displacement. The joint passively preserves its angle until it is actuated
again. The number of degrees of reconfigurability(DOR) is equal to the number of joints. This enables the MASR to achieve similar mobility (albeit
slower) to regular hyper redundant robots.

Inspiration:
(1) The robot is also very modular - the number of links and mobile actuators can be changed in a matter of minutes.

(2) Design of lighter components of arm with same structural integrity

 Title of Paper:Design of Tendon-Driven Manipulators
• Objective and need for mechanism :
The purpose of this paper is to make an overview on the state-of-the-art review in the design of tendon-driven manipulators. Basic
issues including structure characteristics, kinematics, statics, dynamics and control of tendon-driven manipulators are reviewed.

• Significance :
Tendon drives have the advantages of lightweight, low backlash, low friction, small size, and being able to absorb shock. Two
features of tendon drives are: (1) actuators can be installed on the base and (2) a properly pretensioned tendon-driven system has little
backlash
• Mechanism :
To reduce the size and inertia of a manipulator, tendon driven mechanical power transmission systems can be utilized. A properly
designed transmission system permits the actuators to be installed nearby or at the base. Hence, lightweight and compact size
manipulators can be produced

Inspiration:
(1)Making appropriate choice of transmission system such as gear trains, bar linkages, and tendon drives (cables, belts, tapes, chains,
or ropes).The choice of a transmission mechanism depends on the application and other design considerations( the power-to-weight
ratio optimized, backlash and vibration minimized, and friction reduced)

(2) Implementation of potentiometer/ optical encoder for higher accuracy closed loop control.