Automatic lock for mechanisms controlling various movements of t

Details Automatic lock for mechanisms controlling various movements of t Automatic lock for mechanisms controlling various movements of t

1989-01-09

1990-04-10

Spar, Robert J.

Material or article handling

Article manipulator moves analogous with human hand, finger,...

414 7, 744115, 901 29, 901 21, 901 41, 901 49, B25J 1504

Patent

active

049155636

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention concerns an automatic lock for devices controlling the various movements of a pair of gripping pliers borne by a ball and socket joint secured in a dismountable way at the extremity of one slave arm of the remote handling device during dismounting of the ball and socket. Optionally, this device also ensures automatic locking of the aforesaid mechanisms during dismounting of the gripping pliers when the latter is also dismountable.
Remote handling devices are known to be devices allowing certain handling operations to be effected inside containment cells. Outside the cell, these devices include a master arm and a control handle mounted by a ball and socket joint at the extremity of the master arm. The part of the device situated inside the cell comprises a slave arm completed by a ball and socket joint on which secured is a pair of gripping pliers. These two parts of the remote handling device can be interconnected mechanically or electrically so that the slave arm and the gripping pliers it bears virtually identically reproduce movements carried out by the operator on the master arm and its control handle. According to the type of handling operation to be carried out, the master and slave arms can either be articulated or telescopic.
In general, both the control handle and the gripping pliers possess two degrees of freedom to which added is the clamping movement of the pliers. These two degrees of freedom correspond to a possibility for pivoting of the handle and pliers around an axis orthogonal to the axis of the arm which bears them and to a pivoting movement of the handle and pliers around their own axis.
In order to transmit these various movements along the arm, strips wound up on pulleys and whose extremities are fixed onto capstans are frequently used. In the case where the transmission of movements between the master and slave arms are carried out electrically, the capstans situated at the upper extremity of the slave arm being controlled by motors which are activated when signals representative of a corresponding movement of the master arm are received.
Moreover, in order to facilitate maintenance and enable different operations to be carried out inside a given cell, the unit formed by the gripping pliers and the ball and socket joint bearing the latter is generally fixed in such a way to make it dismountable at the slave arm extremity.
If the operator accidently activates the control handle when the gripping pliers and its ball and socket joint are disconnected, the motors controlling the drive capstans of the strips housed in the slave arm are activated, which provokes the winding and unwinding of the strips over a certain length. When the pliers and the ball and socket joint are reset, the strips then occupy a position different from the one they occupied before these devices were removed. Given the fact that the strips housed in the slave arms frequently have a limited additional travel with respect to the travel they must normally have in order to ensure the control of the pliers movements, it is then possible that one of the strips reaches the end of travel before the mechanical stop, provided to this effect on the pliers or the ball and socket joint, is activated.
in these conditions, it frequently occurs that the movement transmission strips housed in the slave arm may break. Such an incident may prove too be serious since it results in immobilization of the remote handling device and involves a long and costly intervention.
Should the risk explained above be particularly great when the transmission of movements between the master arm and the slave arm is carried out electrically, since the motors continue to move when the strips are reaching the end of stroke, this also occurs when this transmission of movements is carried out mechanically, since the reaction of the operator may in some cases be carried out tool late.
The specific aim of this invention is to produce a device enabling this drawback to be overcome by ensuring automatic locking of the mechanisms controlling the

REFERENCES:
patent: 3297172 (1967-01-01), Haaker et al.
patent: 3543592 (1970-12-01), Haaker et al.
patent: 3543593 (1970-12-01), Haaker et al.
patent: 3572807 (1971-03-01), Haaker
patent: 4650388 (1987-03-01), Frioux et al.

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