| Budget Amount *help |
¥18,460,000 (Direct Cost: ¥14,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥4,260,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥4,940,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,140,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥6,240,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,440,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥7,280,000 (Direct Cost: ¥5,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,680,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
In this study, we tried to invent a novel type of mobile robot with small diameter and linear soft structure, which enabled to generate both propulsion force and supporting force uniformly in the long body, aiming to make it travel and search in the long distance inside narrow spaces. To solve it, Twin-tube structure composed of two flexible tubes were introduced, which could perform flexibly and adapt itself to narrow environment. While the propulsion force is generated between two tubes, one of the tubes passively meandered, gaining stiffness, and then generated the supporting force inside the pipes. Judging from the experimental results by the developed prototype, we could make it sure that the proposed method generated 17 N for propulsion force, traveling 17m distance inside 50mm diameter pipes, when the tube was pressurized by 0.4MPa pneumatic pressure.
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