Design of a miniature tri-axis vertical wall structure climbing robot using electroadhesion

Abstract

Miniature robots have the ability to mimic motion of animals such as walking, rolling, climbing, jumping and flying techniques. The micro-robots are used mainly to manipulate objects, survey areas that are inaccessible, risky to operators such as building or offshore structure for cracks and damage. In this paper, a robot with climbing ability is designed and built for vertical structure inspection which requires moving on corners. The proposed robot using an electro-adhesion method is able to transit from floor to vertical wall while performing wall-climbing. In-house built electroadhesive for the climbing robot is tested and has shown some good results in adhesion during the tests.