Development of a safe manipulator for positioning a kiosk panel

Abstract

Kiosks are widely used in drive-thru systems in parking lots or on the highway to provide various services to drivers. However, the driver must stop at an exact location to access the kiosk, since its panel is fixed. In order to improve the kiosk accessibility, in this study we developed a manipulator that can adjust the position of the kiosk panel. The number of active joints was minimized to lower the cost, whereas a parallelogram mechanism and passive joints were adopted to increase its convenience for the users. Furthermore, a safety mechanism using springs and a cam was designed to ensure the safety of the user in the case of an emergency. The performance of the position controller and the safety mechanism were verified through various tests. In addition, the proposed collision reaction strategy improved the safety performance of the kiosk system. © 2012 The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers.