Wall Climbing and Inspection Robot for Locomotion in 3D Environment

- OVER VIEW -

  In common life, we can see many huge structures, such like bridges, buildings, ships and airplanes. And also the technology for maintaining is required, especially inspection, painting, fixing etc. But that kind of work is exposed with dangerous environment. Sometimes human could dangle on the wall. And sometimes, like nuclear facilities there is forbidden area for creature. For this environment, we developed a wall climbing robot named "MRWALLSPECT Series" and "LARVA", for inspection. With this robot, we can ensure the safety for not only the buildings but also the workers. 

Window Cleaning Robot for High-rise Building

  We are conducting research about window cleaning robot for high-rise building. The field of window cleaning robot research is not active yet. On the other hand its possibility of being practical is quite high. So we have many things to do. At now we are conducting simulation about different type of window cleaning robots .

LARVA - I

  Wall climbing robot system "LARVA" is visual inspection robot for bridges using an impellent force adhesion method. This adhesion mechanism consists of an impeller and flexible suction seals which provide sufficient adhesion forces for supporting its body on the surface by keeping the air pressure inside the foot of the robot less than a critical safe value. A comprehensive study is performed on the dynamic fluid modeling of the adhesion mechanism. In addition, the stable locomotion on the vertical wall and an adhesion control method for a wall climbing robot are derived. The controller, though it is simple, provides a useful framework for controlling a wall climbing robot.

- Carring 7 kg of payload, which is 3 times of its weight.
- A single vacuum motor, two driving wheels and motors are used.
- A Single Board Computer (SBC)and two 8 bit micro controllers are use for control.
- Wireless LAN, gyroscope, vision camera is implanted.

MRWALLSPECT - III

  MRWALLSPECT III can walk in planes as well as climb walls with suction pad. Since the robot is expected to be able to move from wall to wall, wall to plane including negotiation convex or concave the robot. By performing intuitive and geometrical analysis, critical aspects of design such as joint ranges, design of ankles, and location of actuators are applied to the robot. And also the robot is designed to carry an ultrasonic NDT tool for inspection of the large surface of industrial utilities.

- Highly adaptive walking robot with suction pad. It can walk planes as well as climb walls.
- Four legs with 3-DOFs active joints in each leg provide large workspace with flexible movements.
- Leg has ankle joint with passive spherical joint to adapt with all the touch direction.
- Harmonic mass distribution but still ensures strength of mechanism.
- Completed embedded controller with RTLinux is ported.
- IDE type flash disk, several DIO channel, FPGA controlled camera and wireless LAN.
- A 2-DOF inspection system is mounted on the head.

MRWALLSPECT - II

  MRWALLSPECT-II is a compact and robust wall climbing robot. It is a self-contained system for scanning external surfaces of gas or oil tanks and inspecting defects with NDT(Non-Destructive Testing) tools during navigation. The robot has characteristic features in the kinematic design of the leg with closed link mechanism. It reduces the number of actuators compared to the other wall climbing robot and makes it possible to have high force-to-weight ratio. Those are enabled by adopting a simple and robust gait pattern mimicking the living creature. It includes all the components such as vacuum generators, and an embedded controller, batteries, CCD camera, motors and electronics within itself without any external tether cable. MRWALLSPECT-II which is an updated version of MRWALLSPECT-I. It is a totally self-contained system as it has its own source of electricity and compressed air.

- A compact, robust and self-contained wall climbing robot with closed loop mechanism.
- Optimized design legs mechanism for wall-climbing robot.
- All components are included in body.
- Wireless LAN communication provides high flexibility

MRWALLSPECT - I

  A compact and robust wall climbing robot, called MRWALLSPECT, is designed for scanning external surfaces of gas or oil tanks and inspecting defects with Non Destructive Testing tools during navigation. It accomplishes fundamental three-degree-of-freedom locomotion such as translation and rotation over the wall with a novel closed link mechanism. 

- A compact and robust wall climbing robot with closed loop mechanism.
- Vacuum pressure provides high suction force.
- Equipped requisite components for climbing and scanning. 
(Controller, CCD camera, Solenoid valve, Sensor,…)

Publications

• • 최혁렬, 구익모, 이창민, 송영국, 벽면 이동 로봇의 메커니즘, 기계저널, vol.48, no.9, pp.39-43, 2008/09
• • Young Kouk Song, Chang Min Lee, Ig Mo Koo, Duc Trong Tran, Hyungpil Moon, Hyouk Ryeol Choi, Development of Wall Climbing Robotic System for Inspection Purpose, in Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 1990-1995, 2008/9/22 ~ 9/26
• • 구익모, 이창민, 송영국, 최혁렬, "교량 검사를 위한 벽면 이동 로봇의 개발" 한국 로봇공학회 하계 학술대회, pp. 279-280, 2008
• • 구익모, 이창민, 최혁렬, "벽면 이동 검사로봇을 위한 추력형 벽면 이동 부착메커니즘 개발" 한국지능로봇 하계종합학술대회, pp. 419-426, 2007.
• • 송현섭, 강태훈, Vo Gia Loc, 구익모, 최혁렬, "사족보행로봇의 정적 보행에 관한 연구" 한국지능로봇 하계종합학술대회,pp. 375~382, 2006.
• • Hyungseok Kim, Taehun Kang, Vo Gia Loc and Hyouk Ryeol Choi, "Gait Planning of Quadruped Walking and Climbing Robot in Convex Corner Environment" Int. Conf. Control, Automation and Systems, pp. 314-319, 2005.
• • Vo Gia Loc, Tae Hun Kang, Hyun Sup Song, Ig Mo Koo and Hyouk Ryeol Choi, "Quadruped Walking and Climbing Robot for Complex Environment" 한국지능로봇 하계종합학술대회, pp. 300~307, 2006.
• • Hyungseok Kim, Taehun Kang and Hyoukryeol Choi, "Walking and Climbing Robot for Locomotion in 3D Environment" Proc. Int. Symp. Automation and Robotics in Construction, pp. 256-261, 2004.
• • Taehun Kang, Hyungsuk Kim, Taeyoung Son and Hyoukryeol Choi, "Design of Quadruped Walking and Climbing Robot" Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 619-624, 2003.
• • Taeyoung Son, Taehun Kang, Hyungseok Kim and Hyoukryeol Choi, "Omni-directional Gait Control of Quadruped Walking Robot" Proc. Int. Conf. Control, Automation and Systems, pp. 2529-2534, 2003.
• • Taehun Kang, Jaejun Park, Hyungsuk Kim and Hyoukryeol Choi, "Self Contained Wall-Climbing Robot with Closed Link Mechanism" Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 1730-1735, 2002.
• • S. W. Ryew, J. J. Park, S. M. Ryew, H. R. Choi, "Self-contained Wall-climbing Robot with Closed Link Mechanism" Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 839-844, 2001.
• • H. R. Choi, S. M. Ryew, T. H. Kang, J. H. Lee, H. M. Kim, A Wall Climbing Robot with Closed Link Mechanism, in Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 2006-2011, 2000/10.
• • 최혁렬, 이정훈, "벽면이동로봇개발" 한국정밀공학회 춘계학술대회 논문집, pp. 3~6, 1999
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Project

• • • 한국전자통신연구원
    빌딩 유리창 청소용 로봇 핵심기술개발 (2008 / 08 / 01 ~ 2009 / 01 / 31)
    • • 건설교통기술평가원
      보행형 벽면검사 로봇플랫폼 및 제어시스템 개발 (2005 / 12 / 30 ~ 2008 / 12 / 29)

Researcher

Se Goh Roh, Ig Mo Koo, Chang Min Lee, Young Kouk Song