Development of shape memory actuated ITU Robot Hand and its mine clearance compatibility

Grippers and general purpose robot hands, which are end effector elements in robot applications, have been used previously in the painting and welding operations. With developing technology, they are employed seriously in various industrial operations such as transferring, assembling, manufacturing. There are various technological actuators of robot hands which give the power for the joint motion. Hydraulic, pneumatic systems and electrical motor systems are very common actuator technologies. However, the actuator systems, which are employed by shape memory alloys, take importance recently, besides traditional actuators. In this study, we have made a change in prototype SMA Robot Hand, which is presented in Army Academy XXth Operation Research and Industrial Engineering Congress in Product Development and Design area. A new prototype, ITUHand, is developed using Ni-Ti shape memory alloy and a set of studies were performed in order to check the compatibility of the system in the mine clearance area. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.