Spider robot - automatic transfer system of the plasma welding machine for LNGC membrane sheet

In this paper, we propose a new system for automatic transfer of the LNGC (liquefied natural gas carrier) membrane plasma welding-machine. To replace the manual transfer that requires lots of time and labor, a robot was realized by developing four movable legs that include clamp and up/down modules. One of the four legs is fixed on the body and the others are shifted sequentially to transfer the body and welding machine to the next welding position. These legs support the body that contains the platform rail for the welding machine. The clamp module is implemented to attach the robot to the membrane plate by clamping the corrugation. The welding machine is operated on the robot's body and the robot moves it to the next welding position automatically. The effectiveness of the proposed SR (spider robot) has been evaluated by experiment.