Design and analysis of a passive adaptive wall-climbing robot on variable curvature ship facades

Abstract

To improve the adaptive motion performance of traditional wall-climbing robots on variable-curvature facades, a crawler-type wall-climbing robot suitable for ship wall features is proposed by utilizing the advantages of passive mechanisms in realizing autonomous robots. The robot consists of two passive adaptive crawler mechanisms and a connecting module. Each track structure contains multiple permanent magnets that can passively adapt to concave and convex facades of different curvatures. A static failure model is established according to the characteristics of the triangular distributed load, and the minimum adsorption force required for the robot to achieve safe motion is determined. The Halbach Array magnetic circuit design method was used to construct a gap-type permanent magnet adsorption model for lightweight design. The influence of wall thickness and air gap distance on the adsorption force is analyzed by parametric simulation. The prototype platform test shows that the robot can realize adaptive variable curvature motion through passive adjustment of the mobile mechanism attitude and has a certain load capacity.