This paper addresses the dimensional synthesis of an adaptive mechanism of
contact points ie a leg mechanism of a piping inspection robot operating in an
irradiated area as a nuclear power plant. This studied mechanism is the leading
part of the robot sub-system responsible of the locomotion. Firstly, three
architectures are chosen from the literature and their properties are
described. Then, a method using a multi-objective optimization is proposed to
determine the best architecture and the optimal geometric parameters of a leg
taking into account environmental and design constraints. In this context, the
objective functions are the minimization of the mechanism size and the
maximization of the transmission force factor. Representations of the Pareto
front versus the objective functions and the design parameters are given.
Finally, the CAD model of several solutions located on the Pareto front are
presented and discussed.Comment: Proceedings of the ASME 2014 International Design Engineering
Technical Conferences \& Computers and Information in Engineering Conference,
Buffalo : United States (2014
