• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.573-581
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• 2004

A self-contained wall climbing robot, called MRWALLSPECT (Multi-functional Robot for WALL inSPECTion) II, is developed. It is designed for scanning external surfaces of gas or oil tanks with small curvature in order to find defects. The robot contains all the components for navigation in itself without any external tether cable. Although it takes the basic structure of the sliding body mechanism, the robot has its original characteristic features in the kinematic design with closed link mechanism, which is enabled by adopting a simple and robust gait pattern mimicking a biological system. By employing the proposed link mechanism, the number of actuators is reduced and high force-to-weight ratio is achieved. This paper describes its mechanism design and the overall features including hardware and software components. Also, the preliminary results of experiments are given for evaluating its performances.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.344-349
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• 2017

Wall-climbing robots have been developed for various purposes, such as cleaning skyscraper windows, maintaining large structures, and welding vessels. Conventional wall-climbing robots use movement systems based on wheels or legs. However, wheeled robots suffer from slipping effects, while legged systems require many actuators and control systems for the complex linkage structure, which also increases the weight of the robot. To overcome these disadvantages, we propose a new wall-climbing robot that walks based on gorilla locomotion. The proposed robot consists of a DC drive motor, a vacuum pump for adsorption, and a micro controller for controlling the system. The performance of the robot was experimentally verified on vertical and horizontal flat surfaces. The robot could be used for various functions in industrial sites or disaster areas.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2017

This paper presents a methodology for evaluating the performance of wall-climbing robots. In the literature on wall-climbing robots, there is little information on indices and evaluation methods for consistent and exact performance. Because various types of wall-climbing robots can be developed with regard to adherence and locomotion, a general method of measuring their performance regardless of type is needed. Therefore, we propose two major performance indices-the vertical adhering weight and vertical climbing speed-and their stepwise evaluation procedures. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we applied it to a hull-climbing robot that we previously developed. The target robot was evaluated to have a vertical adhering weight of 18.5 kg through a slip measurement procedure and a vertical climbing speed of 41 cm/s with a position control system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.245-246
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• 2012

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.235-236
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• 2012

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.233-234
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• 2012

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.229-230
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• 2006

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.8 s.179
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• pp.2065-2073
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• 2000

In this paper, we present a wall climbing robot whose gate pattern takes after those of specialized climbing animals such as spiders. Characteristic features of the biological locomotion are partly realized in the design of the mechanism. The robot has two legs and a trunk. Each one-dof leg with suction pads is driven by a motor which employs a closed loop linkage mechanism, and the trunk with suction pads steers the whole body of the robot using a motor. By generating adequate trajectories of the leg and simultaneously alternating the suction pattern between the legs and the trunk, we can achieve the spider like motion. The proposed idea is implemented in a robot and some tests are performed to evaluate its performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.740-743
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• 2005

Most works of the large vertical ceiling structures have been performed by human manually. These works require much more operation costs, labors and times, etc. Beside most people avoid this works because of it's characteristic such as danger, dirty and difficulty. So necessity of automation for these works has been rising. This automation needs a wall climbing mobile vehicle because of the movement of platform large workspace. In this study, we aim at develop the wheel which can be used for vertical wall-climbing mobile robot using electromagnet wheel. The wheel proposed can be available for several working processes on structures which consist magnetic substance.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.191-195
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• 2019

This paper presents a rope modeling and verification for the robotic platform of the wall cleaning robot (ROPE RIDE). ROPE RIDE has the characteristics of climbing up and down using a rope fixed on the roof like traditional workers. In order to perform a stable operation with a wall cleaning robot, it is necessary to estimate the position of the robot in a vertical direction. However, due to the high coefficient of extension and nonlinearity of the climbing rope, it is difficult to predict the behavior of the rope. Thus, in this paper, the mathematical modeling of the rope was carried out through the preliminary experiment. Extensive experiments using different types of rope were used to determine the parameters of the constitutive equation of climbing ropes. The validity of the determined parameters of various ropes was verified through the experiment results.