A master-slave manipulator for excavation and construction tasks

Currently used excavators and other construction machines use hydraulic actuators as the means of providing the necessary power to their effector tooling. The tools lack the flexibility of applying varying forces on an excavated object, thus preventing the use of powered equipment for the excavation and handling of buried sensitive objects. The prototype design of a master-slave force-feedback hydraulic manipulator described here will enable equipment operators to "feel" the force applied by the tool on a handled object as well as its location in space. This new tool may be provided as an optional feature on the traditional excavators, thus contributing to a greater flexibility of these machines and to the productivity enhancement of related work tasks.