The inchworm type blade inspection robot system

Abstract

This paper describe the robot system for maintenance and inspection of blade on offshore wind turbine power system. Because [three-dimensional model of] the blade surface has a variety, the robot attached on the blade to vertical movement is required the flexible structure. The inchworm type robot equipped the flexible mechanism based on the three-dimensional blade lookup table. To detect the exact damage, the minimization clearance between the blade surface and test equipment is guaranteed. For upper reason, robot has the compliance and detail motion control mechanism. The robot can move by itself on the blade surface by inchworm mechanism, which is constructed by two active wheels and two passive wheels that can fix the robot body on the blade, one extendable and contractible actuator. In this paper, we describe our approach of how the inchworm type robot is controlled and inspect. Additionally, we describe the mechanism of robot as well as flexible joint with respect to complex surface of blade.