• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.940-948
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• 2007

The Advanced Spent Fuel Conditioning Process(ACP), which is the process of the reduction of uranium oxide by lithium metal in a high temperature molten salt bath for spent fuel, was developed at Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). Since the ACP equipment is located in an intense radiation field (hot cell) as well as in a high temperature, it must be remotely operated and maintained. The ACP hot cell is very narrow so the workspace of the wall-mounted mechanical Master-Slave Manipulators(MSMs) is restricted. A Bridge Transported Servo Manipulator(BTSM) system has been developed to overcome the limitation of an access that is a drawback of the mechanical MSMs. The BTSM system consists ot a bridge crane with telescoping tubeset, a slave manipulator, a master manipulator, and a control system. We applied a bilateral position-position control scheme with friction compensation as force-reflecting controller. In this paper, the transmission characteristics on the tendon-and-pulley train is numerically formulated and analyzed. Also, we evaluate the performance of the force-reflecting servo manipulator.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2004.06a
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• pp.306-315
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• 2004

A Bridge Transported Servo Manipulator (BTSM) for Advanced spent fuel Conditioning Process (ACP) has been developed to overcome the limitation of access that is a drawback of Mechanical master-slave manipulators (MSMs) for the equipment maintenance. Wire-driven mechanisms have been adopted to increase the handling capacity to weight. The main disadvantage of the wire driven mechanism is that if one link is in motion, other links can be affected because wires and links are coupled. In this paper, the relationship between pulleys and links are formiliarized to overcome this drawbacks, Derived equations are proven and analyzed through experiments.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2514-2518
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• 2003

The KAERI Spent Fuel Remote Technology Development (SFRTD) Department is developing the remote maintenance and repair equipment, which is used in a hot cell in an intense radiation field, as part of a project to develop the Advanced spent fuel Conditioning Process (ACP). Although several mechanical master-slave manipulators (MSMs) is mounted on the hot cell wall, their reach will be limited and cannot access areas for all the ACP equipment maintenance. A Bridge Transported ServoManipulator (BTSM) has been designed to overcome the limitation of access areas that is a drawback of MSMs for the ACP equipment maintenance. The BTSM system consists of four components: a transporter with telescoping tubeset, a slave manipulator, a master manipulator, and a remote control system. The BTSM system has been designed by Solid Edge that is a 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software, except for the remote control system. The master manipulator and the slave manipulator are kinematically similar in design, except for the handle and the tong, respectively. The manipulators have 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) plus the jaws motion. The transporter has traveling, traverse, and hoisting motion to position the slave manipulator.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.189-199
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• 2004

A bridge transported servo manipulator (BTSM) system for the advanced spent fuel conditioning process (ACP) has been developed to overcome the limitation of access, which is a drawback of mechanical master-slave manipulators (MSM) for the equipment maintenance. The servo manipulator is composed of a slave manipulator attached to the telescoping tubesets equipped with the overhead bridge installed at a hot cell and a master manipulator installed at an out-of-hot cell. Each manipulator has 7 degrees-of-freedom (DOF): a body rotation, an upper-arm tilt, a lower-arm tilt, a lower-arm rotation, a wrist pan & tilt, and a grasp motion. A wire-driven mechanism for a lower-arm rotation, a wrist pan and tilt, and a grasp motion of the manipulator has been adopted to increase the handling capacity compared to the manipulator weight and decrease the friction. The main disadvantage of the wire-driven mechanism is that if one link is in motion, other links can be affected. In this paper, the transmission characteristics among the wire-driven links have been formulated to overcome this drawback. The unexpected behaviors are confirmed by analyses of transmission characteristics as well as experiments. Also, the experimental results show that the unexpected behaviors are greatly decreased by the proposed compensation equations.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.2226-2230
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• 2005

The Advanced Spent Fuel Conditioning Process (ACP), which is a pre-disposal treatment process for spent fuel is being developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). The ACP equipment is operated in an intense radiation field as well as in a high temperature. Thus, the equipment is designed in consideration of the remote handling and maintenance. This paper describes a Bridge Transported Bilateral Force-Reflecting Servo-Manipulator (BTSM) system, which is being developed to overcome the limitation of access that is a drawback of the mechanical Master-Slave Manipulators (MSMs), which are mounted on the ACP hot cell wall for the operation and the maintenance of the ACP equipment. The BTSM system was manufactured and temporally installed at the mockup to test its performance. The manufactured BTSM system will be installed at the ACP hot cell on June 2005 after the accomplishment of the performance test. The BTSM system consists of four components: a transporter with a telescoping tubeset, a slave manipulator, a master manipulator, and a remote control system. This system will highly increase the volume of coverage for the operation and maintenance of the ACP equipment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.345-350
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• 2003

The development of a prototype for a Bridge Transported Servo Manipulator (BTSM) system operating in a hot cell is introduced. Mechanical master-slave manipulators (MSMs) which are mounted on the hot cell wall cannot access all the areas for the equipment maintenance due to their reach limitation. The BTSM has been developed to overcome the limitation of access that is a drawback of the MSMs for the equipment maintenance. Wire driven mechanisms have been adopted to increase the handling capacity to weight. This system can be a useful reference for designing other devices in the nuclear industry.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.365-376
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• 2005

A prototype of the Bridge Transported Servo Manipulator (BTSM) system has been developed to do operation and maintenance jobs remotely in a hot cell. The system consists of a telescopic transporter, a slave arm, a master arm, and a control system. In this paper, the system is introduced and several performance test results are presented. The results have been used to design an upgraded system that will be used during demonstrations of the advanced spent fuel conditioning process.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.257-268
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• 2005

In this paper, a prototype of the Bridge-Transported Servo Manipulator (BTSM) system is introduced, which has been developed to do operation and maintenance jobs remotely in a hot cell. The system consists of a telescopic transporter, a slave arm, a master arm, and a control system. Several tests such as a positional tracking, a weight handling, reliability, and operability have been performed and test results are presented. Based on the test results, an upgraded system which will be used during demonstrations of the advanced spent fuel conditioning process (ACP) has been designed.