City-Climber: A New Generation Wall-Climbing Robots

摘要

An increasing interest in the development of special climbing robots has been witnessed in last decade. Motivations are typically to increase the operation efficiency in dangerous environments or difficult-to-access places, and to protect human health and safety in hazardous tasks. Climbing robots with the ability to maneuver on vertical surfaces are currently being strongly requested by various industries and military authorities in order to perform dangerous operations such as inspection of high-rise buildings, spray painting and sand blasting of gas tanks, maintenance of nuclear facilities, aircraft inspection, surveillance and reconnaissance, assistance in fire fighting and rescue operations, etc. Such capabilities of climbing robots would not only allow them to replace human workers in those dangerous duties but also eliminate costly scaffolding.