Design and Analysis of a Novel Deployable Robotic Grasper In order to grasp largescale unknown objects, a novel deployable robotic grasper is presented in this paper, which is composed of a train of basic metamorphic mechanism modules. Firstly, a detailed mechanism design is introduced, in which a scissorshaped mechanism is used to design basic module so that it has single deployment mobility and a particular metamorphic mechanism is applied to change its mobility from deployment motion to grasping motion. Then, metamorphic process, mobility analysis, and singularity analysis of the basic module are conducted and the assembling of the grasper is illustrated. Secondary, the deployfold ratio and its influencing factors are discussed. Thirdly, the workspace of the grasper is demonstrated, which shows that the grasper has large reachable workspace. In addition, kinematic equation and dexterity of the proposed grasper are also presented. Finally, the shape adaptability and grasping simulation are conducted, which shows that the grasper has good grasping performances and can be used to grasp largescale unknown objects.

Mobile Robot Manipulation System with a Reconfigurable Robotic Arm: Design and Experiment * Working in unknown environment has become a fundamental requirement of mobile robot manipulation system. This application scenarios require robots to have some basic capabilities, such as the fast and flexible locomotion, dexterous manipulation, and environmental interaction. However, most studies have only focus on just one of the aspects, which restricts the actual applications. This paper attempts to show a novel design of the mobile robot manipulation system with all above capabilities. The system consists of a mobile platform and a reconfigurable 7 degrees of freedom (DOF) robotic arm. The quadruped and wheeled locomotion is realized on the mobile platform. Different from traditional mobile robot manipulation system, a new type of reconfigurable connecting mechanism (RCM) is developed to realize the quick change the configurations and modules. Due to these designs, the system can adapt for different tasks. Besides, the hardware and software of the control system are introduced. Finally, the performances of the developed mobile robot manipulation system are validated by a series of experiments.