Mechanical Design And Operation Process Study Of Throwable Reconnaissance Robots

Recently, more and more antiterrorism activities have caused great loss of life and proper-ty, which require robots that can do secret reconnaissance tasks in constrained areas. In this paper, one kind of throwable micro-robots is designed and developed, which can be used in special environments, such as inside unknown buildings, unreachable narrow spaces by man-kind or dangerous zones filled with poison gas. The robots developed can be carried and thrown into target areas through window or hole by solider when necessary.Based on the feature of throwable robot, a two-wheel form (dumbbell form) structure with a supporting tail is proposed. A special damping structure is made to absorb shock from the drop. Based on the modular design method, the robot can be conveniently assembled or dis-sembled, and different wheels can be exchanged to adapt to different pavements.Using Solidworks, the structure design and 3D modeling of the robot are completed. Ac-cording to three circumstances:falling vertically at 1 metre high, throwing horizontally at 2 metre high, throwing at a 45 degree angle and 2 metre high, the throwing processes are simu-lated by ANSYS WORKBENCH, and the robot posture change in the air and the moment of landing posture and speed are obtained.Aiming at the robot falling horizontally, at 45 degree angle, vertically and the case with tail towards the ground, the impacting transient processes are simulated using WORKBENCH and LS-DYNA. The simulation results contain the impact deformations of robot components with touching the ground, and the velocity and acceleration of the robot in the impacting pro-cess.Based on the results of impacting simulation, the modal analysis of body shell is made and its mechanical properties and stability are checked. With the objective of minimizing the maximum stress and maximum deformation, the structure sizes of the output shaft are opti-mally designed. The maximal deformation and maximal stress acting on the output shaft are significantly reduced.Several robot prototypes are developed, and tests about remote control, throwing, falling, impacting and rolling down the stairs are carried out. The robot behaves well in the tests so that it meets the the design requirements.