Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T13:56:07.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

TRIPILLAR: a miniature magnetic caterpillar climbing robot with plane transition ability1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2011

Patrick Schoeneich ,
Frederic Rochat ,
Olivier Truong-Dat Nguyen ,
Roland Moser  and
Francesco Mondada
Patrick Schoeneich
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Systèmes Robotiques (LSRO), Mobots group, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland E-mail: patrick.schoeneich@epfl.ch
Frederic Rochat*
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Systèmes Robotiques (LSRO), Mobots group, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland E-mail: patrick.schoeneich@epfl.ch
Olivier Truong-Dat Nguyen
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Systèmes Robotiques (LSRO), Mobots group, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland E-mail: patrick.schoeneich@epfl.ch
Roland Moser
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Systèmes Robotiques (LSRO), Mobots group, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland E-mail: patrick.schoeneich@epfl.ch
Francesco Mondada
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Systèmes Robotiques (LSRO), Mobots group, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland E-mail: patrick.schoeneich@epfl.ch
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: frederic.rochat@epfl.ch
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

We present a miniature magnetic climbing robot with dimensions 96 × 46 × 64 mm3. With two degrees of freedom it is able to climb ferromagnetic surfaces and to make inner plane to plane transitions whatever their inclination is. This robot, named TRIPILLAR, combines triangular-shaped magnetic caterpillars and frame magnets. This particular configuration allows, for example, to move from ground to wall and ceiling and back. This achievement opens new avenues to use mobile robotics for industrial inspection with stringent size restrictions, such as the ones encountered in power plants.

Keywords

Service RobotsNovel Applications of RoboticsMobile RobotsMechatronic SystemsDesign
Type
Articles
Information
Robotica , Volume 29 , Issue 7 , December 2011 , pp. 1075 - 1081
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

This paper was originally submitted under the auspices of the CLAWAR Association. It is an extension of work presented at CLAWAR 2009: the 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines, Istanbul, Turkey.

References

1.Brockmann, W., Albrecht, S., Borrmann, D. and Elseberg, J., “Dexterous Energy-Autarkic Climbing Robot,” Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines (CLAWAR '08), Coimbra (2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Lee, J. and Fearing, R., “Contact self-cleaning of synthetic Gecko adhesive from polymer microfibers,” Langmuir 24, 10587–10591 (2008).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
3.Prahlad, H., Pelrine, R., Stanford, S., Marlow, J. and Kornbluh, R., “Electroadhesive Robots – Wall Climbing Robots Enabled by a Novel, Robust, and Electrically Controllable Adhesion Technology,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA '08), Pasadena, CA, USA (2008), pp. 3028–3033.Google Scholar
4.Hirose, S. and Tsutsumitake, H., “Disk Rover: A Wall-Climbing Robot Using Permanent Magnet,” Proceedings of the 1992 lEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Raleigh, NC (1992), pp. 2074–2079.Google Scholar
5.Kotay, K. D. and Rus, D. L., “Navigating 3D Steel Web Structures with an Inchworm Robot,” Proceedings of the 1996 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS '96), Osaka, Japan (1996), pp. 368–375, vol. 1.Google Scholar
6.Shen, W., Gu, J. and Shen, Y., Permanent Magnetic System Design for the Wall-Climbing Robot, vol. 3 (Taylor and Francis, New York, NY, USA 2006) pp. 151–159.Google Scholar
7.Berengueres, J., Tadakuma, K., Kamoi, T. and Kratz, R. A. K. R., “Compliant Distributed Magnetic Adhesion Device for Wall Climbing,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Roma (2007), pp. 1256–1261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8.Longo, D. and Muscato, G., “SCID—A Non-Actuated Robot for Walls Exploration,” Proceedings of the IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, Como, Italy (2001), vol. 2, pp. 874–879.Google Scholar
9.Grieco, J. C., Prieto, M., Armada, M., de Santos, P. González, “A Six-Legged Climbing Robot for High Payloads,” Proceedings of the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Control Applications, Trieste, Italy (1998), vol. 1, pp. 446–450.Google Scholar
10.Tâche, F., Fischer, W., Caprari, G., Moser, R., Mondada, F. and Siegwart, R., “Magnebike: A magnetic wheeled robot with high mobility for inspecting complex-shaped structures,” J. Field Robot. 26, 453–476 (2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11.Fischer, W., Tâche, F., Caprari, G. and Siegwart, R., “Magnetic Wheeled Robot with High Mobility but Only 2 DOF to Control,” Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines (CLAWAR '08), Coimbra (2008).Google Scholar
12.Xu, Z. and Ma, P., “A wall-climbing robot for labelling scale of oil tank's volume,” Robotica 20, 209–212 (2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13.Ju, D.-Y. and Kushida, S., Intelligent Control of Mobile Robot during Autonomous Inspection of Welding Damage Based on Genetic Algorithm (Springer, Berlin, 2001) pp. 661–669.Google Scholar
14.Zhu, Z. Q. and Howe, D., “Halbach permanent magnet machines and applications: A review,” Electr. Power Appl. IEE Proc. 148, 299–308 (2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar