Vacuum Work Robot Considering Riding up on Sediment

Abstract

In general, workers use a hose connected to a vacuum car to clean up iron ore that has fallen from the conveyor and accumulated. However, vacuuming by workers requires the conveyor to be stopped during the operation to prevent contact between workers and the conveyor, which leads to a decrease in productivity. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a vacuum work robot to replace the worker. Additionally, using a remote-controlled vacuum work robot to clean the pile makes it difficult to vacuum the sediment because the nozzle moves away from the sediment when the robot rides up on sediment. Hence, it is important to automatically control the nozzle position to maintain the proper distance between the nozzle and sediment. In this study, we purposed to develop a robot efficient vacuuming operation that can automatically control the nozzle position and reduce the amount of leftover suction. Therefore, we proposed a nozzle position control method that enables the robot to vacuum sediment even when it rides up on sediment. In conclusion, we proved the effectiveness of the proposed method through experiments with automatic nozzle position control on a test course simulating the work environment.