A new trial of tokamak in-vessel inspection manipulator

In this paper, we discuss the design and partial implementation of an in-vessel inspection manipulator in detail, which is considered to serve for China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). Besides the ordinary kinematic/dynamic constraints and specifications for a multiple degrees of freedom (DOF) manipulator suitable for EAST in-vessel inspection, there is extra necessity in design for the extreme in-vessel environment, e.g., high temperature and high vacuum. Based on our recent developed active cooling system, a specific proposal is explored, which employs ordinary commercial mechanical/electrical components only, as if the manipulator works in normal temperature environment. This paper also emphasizes some challenging technical issues toward an implementation, such as an optimization of thermal gradient/cooling path in the manipulator, a trade-off between large reachable space and large rotation angle of each joint, a special designed revolute joint structure for cooling tube arrangement and so on. We use an EtherCAT based real time control platform connecting drivers and sensors, which achieves a robust closed-loop system and a clean cable aspect simultaneously. In the later part of the paper, basic mechanical tests and inspection process are described. Evaluation on recent progress and future work toward a whole-scale test is stated and expected.