Advanced child unit of “Anchor Climber” using modified internally-balanced magnet

Abstract

High mobility and large payload capability are important for wall climbing robots. The authors have proposed a new robot system Anchor Climber that could achieve both of these two abilities. This robot system is composed of two or more child units and a parent unit. As child units, wall climbing robots Adhering Mobile Units (AM Units) have been developed by using the technique of internally-balanced magnet (IB Magnet). In this paper, study of IB Magnet to use AM Units effectively, proposal of transformable crawler unit as a driving unit of AM Unit, development of an advanced AM Unit with these new mechanisms, and experiments with the robot to confirm effects of added new mechanisms are described.