Development of design system of manipulator for fusion reactor maintenance

AbstractA program which supports designers of a manipulator for in-vessel maintenance of a fusion reactor has been developed. The main purpose of this program is to provide the designer with a promising manipulator specification by furnishing useful information. It combines a technique of knowledge engineering with numerical solutions.This program consists of three parts: the first part is to generate candidates for the manipulator using a knowledge base; the second is to evaluate both static and dynamic properties of each candidate through numerical simulation of the maintenance task; and the third is to select the candidates having better performance and feasibility on the basis of the simulation data and knowledge base.The feasibility of the method used in this program is confirmed by the preliminary application. This application also emphasizes the importance of the knowledge base for the candidate generation and selection. Although the degree of freedom of the manipulator is restricted to less than 7 degrees in this study, further development of the capability of manipulator simulation (seven or more degrees of freedom) will enhance the effectiveness of this program.