Design and Control of a Cleaning Unit for a Novel Wall-Climbing Robot

This paper presents the design and control of a cleaning unit installed on a novel wall-cleaning robot (ROPE RIDE: RObotic Platform Enabling Rope access In Dangerous Environment). The proposed cleaning unit is able to autonomously avoid various obstacles on the wall of a building and also performs cleaning with sufficient contact force. The prototype of a cleaning unit is systematically designed and examined to verify its impedance-controlled cleaning performance.

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SpinyHand: Contact Load Sharing for a Human-Scale Climbing Robot

Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics ◽

10.1115/1.4043023 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Shiquan Wang ◽

Hao Jiang ◽

Tae Myung Huh ◽

Danning Sun ◽

Wilson Ruotolo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Contact Force ◽

Control Strategy ◽

Load Sharing ◽

Design Guidelines ◽

Climbing Robot ◽

Stochastic Nature ◽

Human Scale ◽

Dense Arrays ◽

And Control ◽

Future Work

We present a hand specialized for climbing unstructured rocky surfaces. Articulated fingers achieve grasps commonly used by human climbers. The gripping surfaces are equipped with dense arrays of spines that engage with asperities on hard rough materials. A load-sharing transmission system divides the shear contact force among spine tiles on each phalanx to prevent premature spine slippage or grasp failure. Taking advantage of the hand’s kinematic and load-sharing properties, the wrench space of achievable forces and moments can be computed rapidly. Bench-top tests show agreement with the model, with average wrench space errors of 10–15%, despite the stochastic nature of spine/surface interaction. The model provides design guidelines and control strategy insights for the SpinyHand and can inform future work.

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Ear-Bot: Locust Ear-on-a-Chip Bio-Hybrid Platform

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21010228 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 228

Author(s):

Idan Fishel ◽

Yoni Amit ◽

Neta Shvil ◽

Anton Sheinin ◽

Amir Ayali ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Proof Of Concept ◽

Robotic Platform ◽

Neural Signals ◽

Technological Approach ◽

Hybrid Platform ◽

And Control ◽

Robust Sensing ◽

Robotic Sensing ◽

Sound Pulses

During hundreds of millions of years of evolution, insects have evolved some of the most efficient and robust sensing organs, often far more sensitive than their man-made equivalents. In this study, we demonstrate a hybrid bio-technological approach, integrating a locust tympanic ear with a robotic platform. Using an Ear-on-a-Chip method, we manage to create a long-lasting miniature sensory device that operates as part of a bio-hybrid robot. The neural signals recorded from the ear in response to sound pulses, are processed and used to control the robot’s motion. This work is a proof of concept, demonstrating the use of biological ears for robotic sensing and control.

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Abigaille II: toward the development of a spider-inspired climbing robot

Robotica ◽

10.1017/s0263574711000373 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 79-89 ◽

Cited By ~ 53

Author(s):

Yasong Li ◽

Ausama Ahmed ◽

Dan Sameoto ◽

Carlo Menon

Keyword(s):

Climbing Robot ◽

Robotic Platform ◽

Dry Adhesion ◽

Tripod Gait

SUMMARYThis paper presents a novel robotic platform, Abigaille II, designed to climb vertical surfaces using dry adhesion. Abigaille II is a lightweight hexapod prototype actuated by 18 miniaturized motors. The robot's feet consist of adhesive patches, which have microhairs with mushroom-shaped caps fixed on the top of millimeter-scale flexible posts. A pentapedal gait is used to climb flat vertical surfaces as this gait maximizes the number of legs in contact to the surface. Abigaille can however also walk by using other gaits, including the tripod gait.

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Active Compensation Control of Wind Force and Wire Roughness for Current Collector Using Optical Fiber Sensor

Volume 6: International Symposium on Motion and Vibration Control ◽

10.1115/detc99/movic-8426 ◽

1999 ◽

Author(s):

Kazuo Yoshida ◽

Masaaki Ukita ◽

Toshiaki Makino

Keyword(s):

Control System ◽

Optical Fiber ◽

Active Control ◽

Contact Force ◽

Optical Fiber Sensor ◽

Current Collector ◽

Low Noise ◽

Fiber Sensor ◽

Noise Current ◽

And Control

Abstract For railways speed up such as 350km/h, it is particularly important to reduce noise caused by current collector for environmental problem. For a solution, a diamond shaped low-noise current collector has been developed. However, it becomes difficult for the current collector to maintain the predetermined contact force between the contact strip and the trolley-wire. Therefore, it is necessary to apply the active control to keep the contact force uniform. However, there is a serious problem for the active control that it is difficult to put sensors in high voltage region. In this paper, an application of plastic optical fiber sensor is devised and it is applied to the control system. In the experiment, the usefulness of the proposed sensor and control system is demonstrated.

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Catastrophe Analysis of Planar Three-Spring Systems

Volume 1B: 25th Biennial Mechanisms Conference ◽

10.1115/detc98/mech-5919 ◽

1998 ◽

Author(s):

J. P. Yin ◽

D. Marsh ◽

J. Duffy

Keyword(s):

Contact Force ◽

Force Control ◽

Energy Function ◽

System A ◽

Spring System ◽

Spring Mechanism ◽

And Control ◽

Control Tool ◽

Contact Force Control

Abstract A special planar three-spring mechanism is proposed for contact force control. An energy function is defined to describe the behavior of this kind of mechanism. It can be used to perform the catastrophe analysis of this mechanism. The analysis result can be used as a design and control tool. By comparing the three-spring system and a two-spring system, we found the three-spring mechanism has better stability than the two-spring system. A three-spring mechanism which can be used to control a general contact force in a plane is also analyzed.

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