Development of Dual-Unit Ceiling Adhesion Robot System With Passive Hinge for Obstacle Traversal Under Kinodynamic Constraints

The inspection of high ceilings or surfaces is important to ensure the quality and safety of infrastructure; however, the approach adopted by people or conventional robots is rather limited. Kinodynamic constraints (simultaneous kinematic and dynamic constraints) are presented by obstacles in real-life scenarios, such as suspended piping and wiring, which further limits the usability of robots. Therefore, this paper proposed an adhesion robot system that is attached to and maneuvers on flat and curved ceilings while traversing obstructions. To traverse obstacles, the robot comprises two units connected by a passive hinge mechanism. Traversal motion is achieved under adhesion force control with preexisting electric ducted fans without using separate hinge motors; thus, no additional weight is included. In addition to robot hardware, this study investigated the development of a control method based on dynamic analysis under the aforementioned kinodynamic constraints. Specifically, the proposed control algorithm considers the slipping and rollover conditions of the robot caused by the external force and moment applied to the unit during the obstacle traversal, respectively. The algorithm was systematically analyzed by conducting simulations to prevent the robot from experiencing adhesion failure, and the results were verified experimentally. The use of the robot in real-life scenarios was determined by performing feasibility tests in real-life applications. © 2013 IEEE.11Ysciescopu

Multi-Agent-Based Wall-Climbing Robot System for Safety Inspection of Nuclear Power Plant

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Development of safety-inspection-purpose wall-climbing robot utilizing aerial drone with lifting function

This paper proposes a design of the structural inspection system which is composed of a small and highly maneuverable wall-climbing robot and an aerial drone with a lifting function, mainly focusing in its application on the containment building of nuclear power plants. The wall-climbing robot is lifted to the point of interest on the dome by docking with the drone and detaches from the drone after the attachment to the wall. The localization and relative positioning methods, as well as the cooperation scenario, are proposed for successful cooperation between the robots. To guarantee the stable maneuver of the wall-climbing robot, the critical adhesion force is calculated by static analysis, while shape of the duct is selected to achieve good attachment to the wall. This implementation confirmed the feasibility and capability of the proposed system concept through the wall attachment test. The proposed system can be utilized not only in the nuclear power plants, but also in various environments where inspection of the wall or ceiling is needed, including the bridges or the tunnel, where inspection using conventional wheeled vehicle or inspection performed by human is not feasible or efficient.1