Wireless climbing robots for industrial inspection

Abstract

Climbing robots have proven their abilities and enormous potential for industrial inspection tasks. These automated systems can climb, work, perform different actions in hazardous environments, changing between different types of surfaces and navigating through narrow spaces with difficult accessibility. Recently advances in mechanical engineering design and materials such as composites, have resulted in components and structures with complex geometries that need to be inspected more rigorously with more robust devices and novel techniques. The paper describes a survey on climbing robots for different environments along with adhesion techniques that operate in critical industrial environments, such as aerospace, transportation, pipelines, petro-chemical processing and power generation. The application for these robots are mainly for surveillance and inspection rather than executing none destructive tests.