Rotor Turning Over Mechanism for Wall Hovering Robot(Mechanical Systems)

Abstract

Accident falls of cement mortars at old buildings often occur. To prevent such accidents, walls must be periodically inspected and repaired. Moreover, in case of the earthquake or typhoon, cliffs near roads must be inspected as soon as possible to decide whether to close them. Performing tasks on walls or cliffs is very dangerous for workers. Therefore wall climbing robots are highly desired. Such robots should be able to move fast and exert a contact force to a wall for performing inspection and repairing tasks. They should also be compact and easy to use. Wall climbing robots developed so far adhere to walls, which results in poor mobility. They still need a lifeline for safety. In this paper, we propose a wall hovering robot with twin reversible rotors hung by cables. When the robot performs tasks, its rotors send air outside to push its body against a wall. When the robot moves, they send air against the wall so that the robot can hover and move fast by winding the cables. Simply reversing the direction of the rotors is not effective. This paper proposes a simple mechanism that turns over the blades of the rotors.