Path Planning of Serial Two Link Planar Manipulator for Avoidance of Steam Generator Plugged Tube

Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) has 8 Steam Generators (SGs). Inspection of SGs requires a remote tooling to reach each of the 547 tubes. In PFBR SG, Sodium flows through the shell side and water/steam through the tube side. Degradation of the SG tubes are caused by corrosion, pitting, wear due to flow induced vibration ; so it is necessary that degraded SG tube must be plugged at both ends in order to increase the availability of plant. So the plugged tubes will have some protrusion above tube sheet. As robotic device for inspection is two-axis Selective Compliant Assembly Robotic Arm (SCARA), so during movement from one tube to another tube, plugged tube has to be avoided for safe operation. In this paper path planning technique using vector algebra has been used to find out via point in the Cartesian space. The via point is selected such that robot can avoid plugged tube& ensures healthy operation of device.