High-performance wall-climbing robot for inspection and maintenance

A wall-climbing robot that can continuously work on many types of wall surfaces has been developed. This robot based on low-vacuum adsorption principle consists of a locomotion mechanism, a sealing device, a fluid machine and a detecting system. The adsorption force is analyzed in details and its influencing factors are given. The robot prototype, which has the features of high adhesion efficiency, light body in weight, small size in structure and good capability in payload, is tested in outdoor and indoor environments. Through the experiments, the influences of the impeller slit and the seal clearance are discussed. In addition, the robot functions such as adsorption performance, locomotion performance and wall adaptability are tested by experiments. The experiments have verified that the robot not only can climb on many types of wall surfaces, but also has outstanding locomotion ability and payload capacity.