Development and optimum design of a mobile manipulator for CBRN sampling

Chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) defense is a very critical issue in today´s world and there is a trend to apply unmanned systems in such emergencies. Mobile manipulator is one typical representative and the performance of the manipulator matters a lot for the task. In this paper, the requirement of the manipulator for a sampling task is analyzed and a lightweight 5R manipulator is presented. As to get the best performance of the manipulator during the sampling process, the planar 3R manipulator´s workspace is deeply looked into and an optimization method is proposed, which combines the condition number of the normalized Jacobian matrix and the end effector´s orientation capability. And the optimum design is demonstrated through the simulation of a specific sampling task using rvc toolbox.