The safe management of radiation sources and wastes is one of the most important elements in operating nuclear power plants (NPPs). Safe management requires periodically measuring radiation during ...

Wall-Climbing Robot with Active Sealing for Radiation Safety of Nuclear Power Plants

Design and Technical Development of Wall-Climbing Robots: A Review

This article tackles the challenge of negative pressure adhesion control of a Vortex Robotic (VR) platform, which utilizes a modified Electric Ducted Fan (EDF)-based design for successfully adhering to surfaces of variable curvature. The resulting Vortex Actuation (VA) system is estimated through a switching Autoregressive-Moving-Average with eXternal input (ARMAX) identification, for accurately capturing the throttle to adhesion force relationship throughout its operating range. For safe attachment of the robot on a surface, the critical adhesion is modeled based on the geometrical properties of the robotic platform for providing the required reference forces. Within this work, an explicit controller via the use of a Constraint Finite Time Optimal Control (CFTOC) approach is designed in an offline manner, which results in a lookup table realization that ensures overall system stability in all state transitions. In an effort to further improve the tracking response for arbitrary setup orientations, the adhesion control scheme is extended through a switching EMPC framework. The resulting frameworks are tested through both dynamic simulation and experimental sequences involving: a) adhesion control on a rotating test curved surface and, b) adhesion and locomotion sequences on a water pipe.

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On the Optimal Adhesion Control of a Vortex Climbing Robot

This paper presents our vision of on-the-wall tangible interaction. We envision a future where tangible interaction can be extended from conventional horizontal surfaces to vertical surfaces; indoor vertical areas such as walls, windows, and ceilings can be used for dynamic and direct physical manipulation. We first discuss the unique properties that vertical surfaces may offer for tangible interaction and the interaction scenarios they imbue. We then propose two potential paths for realizing on-the-wall interaction and the technical challenges we face. We follow with one prototype called Climbot. We showcase how Climbot can be used as an on-the-wall tangible user interface for dynamic lighting and as a wall switch controller. We conclude with a discussion of future work.

Towards On-the-wall Tangible Interaction: Using Walls as Interactive, Dynamic, and Responsive User Interface

We present a twin-propelled wall-climbing robot that can stably adsorb and move quickly on a vertical wall by exploiting the propeller’s reverse thrust as the adsorption force and the wheel as the movement method. This paper derives and theoretically analyses the aerodynamic characteristics of the twin-propelled wall-climbing mobile robot system exploiting the momentum inflow model and blade element theory and measures the reverse thrust of a single propeller through real-world experiments. Additionally, Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation software analyzes the influence of structural parameters, such as the lateral spacing of the twin-propeller fixed plate, the width of the fixed-rotor plate, and the inclination angle of the double-rotor on the airflow around the robot. Experiments on the adsorption and movement performance of the dual-rotor wall-climbing robot on a vertical wall demonstrate that the designed twin-propelled wall-climbing robot can stably adsorb and move on a vertical wall. 

Kaige Shi

Papers

Vacuum suction unit based on the zero pressure difference method