Design and Experimental Implementation of Easily Detachable Permanent Magnet Reluctance Wheel for Wall-Climbing Mobile Robot

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new design of the permanent magnet reluctance wheel which will make it possible to attach the robot to a vertical plane and move it. In the newly suggested design, a permanent magnet is utilized to enhance the adhesive force during attachment, and an electromagnet is produced to weaken the magnetic field of the permanent magnet and reduce the adhesive force for easier detachment of wheels from steel plates. To characterize the performance of this new wheel design, a 3-D finite element analysis is executed using a commercial FE program. The results show that the adhesive force is reduced effectively by the electromagnet which flows in the reverse direction of the magnetic loop of the permanent magnet when the current is supplied to the coil.