Development of a Wall Climbing Robot with Scanning Type Suction Cups

Abstract

To perform tasks on wall surfaces of constructions, a wall climbing robot is desirable. The wall climbing robots with suction cups developed so far cannot exhibit their ability on wall surfaces with cracks or gaps. So we developed a two-legged wall climbing robot with a new suction cup on each leg which can adhere easily to a wall surface with crack or gaps. The suction cup is called a scanning type suction cup (SSC). The SSC consists of several suction cells and a vacuum pump. The vacuum pump is connected to the suction cells by a rotary distributor.