Open AccessDesign of a Docking Wall-Climbing Robot
Author(s) -
Rong Liu,
Ronghua Liang
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
international journal of advanced robotic systems
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1729-8814
pISSN - 1729-8806
DOI - 10.5772/53781
Subject(s) - robot , computer science , climbing , dock , docking (animal) , simulation , mobile robot , artificial intelligence , marine engineering , engineering , medicine , nursing , structural engineering
This paper introduces an innovative wall-climbing robot. The robot consists of two single-body negative pressure adsorption robots which could dock together as a mother-robot or separate into two independent child-robots. The child-robots connect with each other through a docking mechanism which can not only lock solidly and unlock smoothly but which can also adjust the relative position of the two child-robots. This design guarantees that while in dock mode the mother robot will be able to cross some barriers which are impossible to surmount for a single-body wall-climbing robot, while in separate mode the child-robots maintain agility and mobility compared to other two-body robots. In this paper, an overview of the mechanical structure of the robot is first presented and then three possible mechanisms for barrier-crossing are discussed and a reasonable one is selected. An analysis of the initial docking condition of the selected design is also given which provides the basis for the experiments and research for the future