Design, analysis and control for an Antarctic modular manipulator

Antarctic scientific expedition has important strategic significance. It is an inevitable trend to apply robots to assist researchers during the Antarctic expedition. However, the robot manipulators at present have a series of problems and unable to meet the requirements of the Antarctic expedition. In this paper, a novel Antarctic modular robot manipulator is proposed, which has a compact structure with modular joints. The robot manipulator has high reliability, and quick assembling-and-disassembling ability. Through well wires arranging and thermal controlling, the manipulator can better adapt to the Antarctic environment. In addition, the work space of the manipulator is seriously analyzed, and a new hybrid position/force control method is adopted to make the manipulator perform better. Simulation results validate the control method and show that the robot manipulator has a good performance to meet the requirements of Antarctic expedition.