Slipring data transfer on a manip
Hi there,
I'm happy to give an update for our development of the feeling-manip-fingers.
We have a working prototype for the sensory array, once I have permisson from the legal team I'd be happy to show some videos of the sensors in action.
What I am struggling with right now is to figure out a way to get around the wrist joint with our data.
Basically we need to get a cable/ data (black lines) from the jaws (green zone) to the rest of manip (blue zone). The easiest and cheapest method would be of course to just give the cable some slack but then the jaw couldn't rotate continously. Which might be annoying for operators.
Also, as the middle of the Jaw assembly is occupied by the piston we cant just use a simple fiber optic rotary joint because our signal cables can't be on the rotary axis.
Of course under water you can't use the usual wireless data-transfer options so i was thinking about using an off-center slipring (picture 2)
What's your opinion, am I missing something? Is there a better option? Have you ever seen/used an under-water slipring? How important is continous jaw rotation in daily manip-work?
Sorry for the crude sketch.