Abstract
A wall climbing robot that dismantles huge spherical gas tansk is needed to avoid placing workers in dangerous situations. It is indispensable that the robot can adjust the magnetic force depending on the gas tank surface and generate enough adhesive power to avoid falling while preventing consumption of exessive driving energy due to excessive adhesive power The present study has developed a four-wheel wall climbing robot, "BEETLE-I", which has six permanent magnet units which can generate 6000 N t maximum. Each unit is able to change its height from the wall, and the data is used to generate enough adhesive force depending on the surface of the all. The robot is 675×470×100 mm in size and about 42 kg in mass. BEETLE-I and the effectiveness of the control system are verified by demonstration experiment on experimental wall.
