Cleaning Process Simulation for Building Façade Maintenance Robot with Built-in Guide Rail

Abstract

Because of frequent construction of high-rise buildings, interest on maintenance and management of the building has been increased recently. With recent development of technology, cleaning outer walls of the high-rise buildings has drawn considerable discussion in terms of human safety and cost. To solve these problems, we’ve developed an automated cleaning robot and it consists of two parts: horizontal robot and vertical robot. These robots move along the guide rail that is built-in the curtain-wall and clean up the glass with a tool system. The cleaning tool system is comprised of injection nozzle and squeeze-suction module. After the injection nozzle sprays the optimal amount of water, polluted water is sucked by the squeeze-suction. The tool angle and force against the glass surface are important to effectively clean out the contamination. The cleaning process is analyzed in terms of the parameters and a new tool mechanism is introduced.