Passive mechanism to stabilize the head floating of Air-floating-type Active Scope Camera regardless of its body rotation.

Abstract

Active Scope Camera(ASC) is the robot video scope camera that can move by itself to probe narrow gaps for rescue missions. ASC has the cilia vibration drive mechanism which generates a propellant force to travel in rubble. We had proposed a method to lift up the head of ASC stably by using air jet and a flexible passive parallel mechanism. However, there are some situations that the mechanism did not work. In this paper, we improve the passive parallel mechanism and develop infinite-rotatable-nozzle to stabilize the head floating of ASC regardless of its body rotation.