• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.114-123
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• 2017

This paper introduces a novel obstacle-climbing robot that moves on the facade of buildings and its climbing mechanism. A winch system set on the top of the building makes the vertical motion of the robot while it climbs obstacles that protrude from the wall surface. The obstacle-climbing robot suggested in this research is composed of a main platform and three modular climbing units. Various sensors installed on each climbing unit detect the obstacles, and the robot controller coordinates the three units and the winch to climb the obstacles using the obstacle-climbing mechanism. To evaluate the performance of the developed robot prototype, a test bed, which consists of an artificial wall and an obstacle, was manufactured. The obstacle size and the time required to climb the obstacle were selected as the performance indices, and extensive experiments were carried out. As a result, it was confirmed that the obstacle-climbing robot can climb various-sized obstacles with a reasonable speed while it moves on the wall surface.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.398-402
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• 2014

This paper presents the results of a study on the optimal footpad design for vertical climbing on acrylic surfaces with various curvatures used Taguchi methods. For a climbing robot, the adhesion system plays an important role in the climbing process. Only an appropriate adhesion strength will prevent the robot from falling and allow it to climb normally. Therefore, the footpad is a significant parameter for a climbing robot and should be studied. Taguchi methods were used to obtain a robust optimal design, where the design variables were the flat tacky elastomeric shape, area, thickness, and foam thickness of the footpad. Experiments were conducted using acrylic surfaces with various curvatures. An optimized footpad was selected based on the results of the experiments and analysis, and the stability of the wall-climbing robot was verified.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.35-42
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• 2008

Most of tasks for vertical surface work in shipyard have been accomplished by human workers. However, such manual work often causes injury to workers, also the production cost becomes high due to increasing individual wage. To cope with the circumstance, shipbuilding companies try to introduce wall-climbing robots for carrying out such kind of tasks. In designing a wall-climbing robot, it is essential to minimize its own weight to improve the performance such as moving speed and power saving. For such purpose. this study proposes a method of optimal design for a wall-climbing robot using a genetic algorithm with multi-objective function. Specifically, the thickness of the robot base is minimized to reduce the weight while maintaining the allowable strength and avoiding the resonance frequencies. The proposed method is applied to the design of a wall-climbing robot, and the result shows that the method is useful at an early design stage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2009.05b
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• pp.15-19
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• 2009

As robotic technologies have become more actively utilized to automate many construction tasks, they have been able to improve the construction productivity, quality, and workers safety on site. A new system, of which Robot-based Construction Automation (RCA), is currently being developed, and RCA systems consist of Construction Factory(CF), Automated Bolting Robots, and Climbing Hydraulic Robot. Especially. Climbing Hydraulic robot system is very important to RCA systems because of function as lifting the Construction Factory. In this paper, We validate safety of Climbing Hydraulic Robot system before application for real building construction.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.213-222
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• 2015

This paper presents a column-climbing robot with a mechanical manipulator, which can spirally go up and down a column using wheels. The developed robot can do useful works using the manipulator at the top of a column, e.g., electric pole while communicating wirelessly with an operator panel. It is driven using a battery without any power cables, and the average duration of power is at least one hour. The robot has a function to detect a work object using an optical sensor installed at the bottom of the manipulator. The spirally column-climbing robot developed is demonstrated by experimental works and also by showing it at an exhibition.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.73-81
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• 2003

An autonomous stair robot recognizing the stair, and climbing up and down the stair by utilizing a robot vision, photo sensors, and appropriate climbing algorithm is introduced. Four arms associated with four wheels make the robot climb up and down more safely and faster than a simple track typed robot. The robot can adjust wheel base according to the stair width, hence it can adopt to a variable width stair with different algorithms in climbing up and down. The command and image data acquired from the robot are transferred to the main computer through RF wireless modules, and the data are delivered to a remote computer via a network communication through a proper data compression, thus, the real time image monitoring is implemented effectively.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.89-99
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• 2017

This paper describes the development of a thigh wearable robot for power assistance during stair climbing. In the wearable robot developed in this study, high-power BLDC motors and high-capacity harmonic reduction gears are used to effectively assist the thigh muscle during stair climbing. In particular, normal ground and stair are distinguished accurately by using wireless smart shoes, and the stair climbing assistance is performed by activating the actuators at an appropriate time. Impedance of the hip joint was effectively reduced by performing friction compensation of the gears, and a wearing adjustment mechanism was designed to fit the robot to the thigh by conveniently modifying the width and tilting angle of the robot using set collars. Consequently, the performance of the developed thigh wearable robot was verified through stair climbing experiments with EMG measurement.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.92.1-92
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• 2002

$\textbullet$ A compact and robust wall-climbing robot, called MRWALLSPECT-II, is developed. $\textbullet$ The robot is a self-contained system for scanning external surfaces of gas or oil tank. $\textbullet$ The robot has advantages of reduced actuators, parts and easy control. $\textbullet$ The mechanism of the robot employs a closed link mechanism. $\textbullet$ Self-Contained, Wall-Climbing, MRWALLSPECT

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.83-91
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• 2012

In this paper, we propose a cable climbing robot which can climb up and down the cables in the bridges. The robot mechanism consists of three parts: a wheel based driving mechanism, adhesion mechanism, and safe landing mechanism. The wheel based driving mechanism is driven by tooth clutches and motors. The adhesion mechanism plays the role of maintaining adhesion force by a combination of pantograph, ball screw, and springs even when the power is lost. The safe landing mechanism is developed for guaranteeing the safety of the robot during operations on cables. It can make the robot fall down with reduced speed by dissipating the gravitational forces. The robot mechanism is designed and manufactured for validating its effectiveness.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.167-173
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• 2020

A lot of research has been done on pipe climbing robots to investigate the aging pipe structures of nuclear power plants and petrochemical plants. Nevertheless, most of the research on pipe climbing robots focused on the structural design and foundational motion control of pipe climbing robots. So, For the operator to control the pipe climbing robot, it has many difficulties to climb the pipe and avoid obstacles by manual operation. In this paper, propose an algorithm that recognizes obstacle by using camera images of pipe climbing robots, estimates the distance between pipe climbing robots and obstacles, and determines the position where pipe climbing robots can catch pipes to avoid obstacles between pipes.