US 4,300,362 AGranted

Articulation for manipulator arm

AssigneeAssociation des Ouvriers en Instruments de Precision

InventorsMaurice A. Lande, Roger J. P. David

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Abstract

An articulation for a manipulation arm at one end of which a tool, e.g. a spray gun, is to be mounted has two supporting elements such as plates or rings which are intercoupled by connecting rods, and joints between the connecting rods and the supporting elements have at least two degrees of freedom. A preferred number of rods is three, and two of the joints may be pivotally mounted to one of the supporting element but a third is non-rotatably mounted. By independent angular driving of two of the coupling rods a wide range of articulation displacements may be caused as between the supporting elements and hence communicated to a tool mounted on one of them. Furthermore the attitude of the tool about an axis perpendicular to the ring may be controlled by a rotatable drive rod linking pivots disposed centrally of each supporting element.

Claims5

Dependent claims

An articulation for a manipulator arm comprising:

first and second spaced apart flat supporting elements;
three connecting rods extending between said first and second elements;
respective first universal joints each connecting one end of a respective one of said rods to said first supporting element, said first joints being spaced apart on said first supporting element;
respective second universal joints connecting the opposite ends of said rods respectively to said second supporting element at spaced apart location thereon whereby said rods and said universal joints link said supporting elements together, said second supporting element being formed with apertures and two of said rods at said opposite ends thereof having elbow-shaped extensions;
and
a pair of control rods adapted to be connected to respective linear drives and having ends provided with respective third universal joints each connected through a respective one of said apertures to a respective one of said elbow-shaped extensions whereby said first supporting element is displaced relative to said second supporting element upon linear movement of said control rods.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.