Design and tolerance analysis of compliant exchanger for rescuing manipulator in nuclear power plant

The rescue mission of nuclear plant is both complex and dangerous, there is an urgent need to enhance the dexterity of rescuing manipulator to realize the automatic tool replacement for executing different tasks. A compliant exchanger for rescuing manipulator in nuclear plant is manufactured. The exchanger adopts a new double universal joint docking method, which can realize the compliant docking and locking of actuator and tool, reduce requirement of control accuracy and contact force in the docking process. The paper does tolerance analysis to the double universal joint docking mechanism and builds a theoretical model for tolerance analysis. The tolerance performance is analyzed and verified through vertical simulation platform. Finally, the docking and locking experiment is done by using six degrees of freedom manipulator, the results prove the validity of the theoretical analysis and simulation analysis.