The Problem of Adhesion Methods and Locomotion Mechanism Development for Wall-Climbing Robots

This review considers a problem in the development of mobile robot adhesion methods with vertical surfaces and the appropriate locomotion mechanism design. The evolution of adhesion methods for wall-climbing robots (based on friction, magnetic forces, air pressure, electrostatic adhesion, molecular forces, rheological properties of fluids and their combinations) and their locomotion principles (wheeled, tracked, walking, sliding framed and hybrid) is studied. Wall-climbing robots are classified according to the applications, adhesion methods and locomotion mechanisms. The advantages and disadvantages of various adhesion methods and locomotion mechanisms are analyzed in terms of mobility, noiselessness, autonomy and energy efficiency. Focus is placed on the physical and technical aspects of the adhesion methods and the possibility of combining adhesion and locomotion methods

Design and Development of Solar Panel Cleaning System

Solar energy is the most abundant source of energy for all the forms of life on the planet Earth. It is also the basic source for all the sources of energy except Nuclear Energy. But the solar technology has not matured to the extent of the conventional sources of energy. It faces lots of challenges such as high cost, erratic and unpredictable in nature, need for storage and low efficiency. This project aims at increasing the efficiency of solar power plants by solving the problem of accumulation of dust on the surface of solar panel which leads to reduction in plant output and overall plant efficiency. It proposes to develop a Solar Panel Cleaning System which could remove the accumulated dust on its surface on a regular basis and maintain the solar power plant output. The system is a robotic system which could move autonomously on the surface of solar panels by using pneumatic suction cups and use dry methods for cleaning such as rotating cylindrical brush and vacuum cleaning system keeping in mind the limited availability of water in areas where such plants are mainly located. This project also aims to reduce the human involvement in the process of solar panel cleaning as it is a very hazardous environment for them in scorching su

Wall Climbing Robot for Inspection of Wall Using Digital Image Processing

This paper presents a wall-climbing robot for crack detection on the surface of the wall. It uses active suction cups as the attaching components and servo motors and vacuum pumps to generate motion and adhering capabilities. The proposed robot can move on a wall by attaching suction cups to the wall and removing them from the wall. Active suction cups requires additional energy from the vacuum pumps to maintain adhesion. Therefore, the proposed robot can climb the wall but requires a constant amount of energy supply. The prototype has been designed, fabricated and tested. The primary objective of the robot is to detect cracks. For that purpose the robot uses digital image processing to aid visual inspection. Canny edge detection method is used to detect edges. Images are stored in the database and are later inspected visually by the operator. A Li-Po battery was used to power up the robot. However due to load and large number of servos motors of high torque capacities being used, the battery drained quickly and could not supply continuous power. A new model which improves the powering problems is thus being designe

Virtual Robot Climbing using Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a field of Artificial Intelligence that has gained a lot of attention in recent years. In this project, RL research was used to design and train an agent to climb and navigate through an environment with slopes. We compared and evaluated the performance of two state-of-the-art reinforcement learning algorithms for locomotion related tasks, Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients (DDPG) and Trust Region Policy Optimisation (TRPO). We observed that, on an average, training with TRPO was three times faster than DDPG, and also much more stable for the locomotion control tasks that we experimented. We conducted experiments and finally designed an environment using insights from transfer learning to successfully train an agent to climb slopes up to 36°

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThis dissertation defines a new class of climbing robots, steering-plane bipeds, which encompasses a large number of existing climbing robots. Three major levels of motion planning are characterized which are common to this class of robots, namely, path planning, step planning, and gait planning. The unified presentation of related motion planning techniques is more generally applicable and more thorough than related algorithms in other literature, while more explicitly identifying limitations and tradeoffs due to alternate design choices within the class of steering-plane bipeds. A novel spline-based method for generating gaits is presented which uses separate path and time rate controls, and explicitly defined foot approach and departure directions that allows 1) a nominal guarantee of collision-free foot trajectories when close to the desired step configuration, 2) independent control of gait shape and speed, and 3) a unified representation of the four gait families of steering-plane bipeds: flipping, inchworm, step-through, and spinning gaits. This dissertation presents a thorough examination of the variations within each gait family, rather than merely presenting a representative instance of each. Concrete case studies applying the techniques of this dissertation are presented for optimizing the gaits for overall speed, energy efficiency, and minimum gripping force and moment. The results highlight that many common gaits in the literature are far from optimal. Results and general rules of thumb for gait planning are extracted that allow guidance for obtaining good results even if using alternate planning techniques without optimization

Mechatronic Systems

Mechatronics, the synergistic blend of mechanics, electronics, and computer science, has evolved over the past twenty five years, leading to a novel stage of engineering design. By integrating the best design practices with the most advanced technologies, mechatronics aims at realizing high-quality products, guaranteeing at the same time a substantial reduction of time and costs of manufacturing. Mechatronic systems are manifold and range from machine components, motion generators, and power producing machines to more complex devices, such as robotic systems and transportation vehicles. With its twenty chapters, which collect contributions from many researchers worldwide, this book provides an excellent survey of recent work in the field of mechatronics with applications in various fields, like robotics, medical and assistive technology, human-machine interaction, unmanned vehicles, manufacturing, and education. We would like to thank all the authors who have invested a great deal of time to write such interesting chapters, which we are sure will be valuable to the readers. Chapters 1 to 6 deal with applications of mechatronics for the development of robotic systems. Medical and assistive technologies and human-machine interaction systems are the topic of chapters 7 to 13.Chapters 14 and 15 concern mechatronic systems for autonomous vehicles. Chapters 16-19 deal with mechatronics in manufacturing contexts. Chapter 20 concludes the book, describing a method for the installation of mechatronics education in schools