Development of Negative Pressure Adsorption Type Traveling-wave Wall-climbing Robot for Aircraft Inspection and Running Experiment

Abstract

Robots are expected to substitute for humans for work performed in locations at a height, such as the inspection of an airplane surface. The authors propose a traveling-wave-type wall-climbing robot simulating a snail direct wave movement. In this robot, several adsorption units are respectively connected by a universal joint, and the robot progresses by the propagation of expansion and contraction between the units. At this time, the moving unit slides on the wall surface, and the unit that does not move is fixed with a strong force, such that each unit switches the frictional force. Consequently, the robot has a wide ground contact surface, thus maintaining a high adsorption force and stable traveling. Furthermore, since it can be bent by a universal joint, it can cross a curved wall surface. To this end, in this study, we developed a negative pressure adsorption type traveling - wave wall - climbing robot, run it in an environment simulating an aircraft about the robot, and evaluated its characteristics.