Design and experimental implementation of easily detachable permanent magnet reluctance wheel for wall-climbing mobile robot

In this paper, we propose a new design of the permanent magnet(PM) reluctance wheel to make possible the robot to be attached to vertical plane and be in motion. In newly suggested design, PM is utilized to enhance the adhesive force during attachment, while electromagnet is introduced to weaken magnetic field and reduce the adhesive force for easier detachment of wheels from steel plates. To characterize the performance, 3-D finite element analysis is executed using commercial FE program. Experimental test is performed to compare with the result of the analysis. The results show that the adhesive force is reduced effectively by the electromagnet.