Motion Analysis of a Modular Inspection Robot with Magnetic Wheels

Abstract

A climbing inspection robot with four magnetic wheels is presented. Its structure is modular, which consists of a light manipulator module, an ultrasonic probes module and a weld testing sensors module. The robot not only can attract on the ferric and vertical wall, and but also can move to inspect the weld seam. It is driven by two DC servo motors. The motion of the robot on the vertical cylindrical vessel is analysed in detail. The position deviation and the angle deviation are adjusted and compensated with the geometric method. At last, the experiment of the motion on real vertical vessel is shown to verify the above analysis and design requirements of the inspection robot at Nanjing refinery factory in China.