Design of a Mechanical End Effector

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Design of a Mechanical End Effector

• Matt Robson and Mike Severance
• Idaho Mechanical Engineering

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Senior Capstone Design

• The Mechanical Engineering program at the
  University of Idaho incorporates a real world
  engineering design project into its senior
  curriculum.
• The goal is to produce a working product and/or
  design solution to the customer with a given time
  and budget constraint.

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Bechtel Hanford, Inc.

• Bechtel Hanford, Inc., the project customer, has
  been contracted by the U.S. Department of Energy
  (DOE) to clean up the nuclear waste left from the
  Cold War era at the Hanford Site on the Columbia
  River in southeastern Washington.

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Bechtels Problem

• The current design of the robotic gripper is
  capable of handling most of the objects in the
  hot cell, but is incapable of effectively
  plugging and unplugging Staubli fluid couplings.
  Bechtel needs a mechanical device which can
  attach to the existing gripper, known as an end
  effector, to manipulate the fluid couplings more
  efficiently.

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Major Design Considerations

• End Effector
• Park Stand
• Testing Platform (mock up of a power manipulator
  gripper for testing purposes)

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Design Constraints

• Connection tolerance of ¼ inch and 5
  misalignment.
• End effector must be able to operate within a 2.5
  by 5 inch envelope to avoid interference with
  other objects in the hot cell.
• End effector must be able to hold up to 60 lbs.
  of deadweight.
• 5,000 budget.

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Conceptual Designs

• All conceptual designs must meet the design
  constraints, and even further, should meet or
  exceed the functional performance requirements of
  the design expected by the customer.
• The following conceptual designs are broken down
  to the individual parts of the design which must
  be considered to meet the functional requirements.

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End Effector
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Park Stand
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Test Platform
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Testing the Design

• Statistical experiment design
• Design must successfully connect the fluid
  couplings with a probability of 95.
• End effector must be picked and placed from the
  park stand successfully with a probability of
  99.
• Test Platform design
• Apparatus has 3 degrees of freedom, or
  3-dimensional motion.
• Simulates all forces applied to and by the power
  manipulator arm and gripper.

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Conceptual Design Highlights
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Design Recommendations
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Questions?