Description
This paper presents a novel design of steel bridge/structure inspection robot. Compared to most existing robots designed to work on particular surface contour of steel structures such as flat or curving, the proposed roller chain-like robot can implement and transfer smoothly on many kind of steel surfaces. The developed robot can be applied to inspection tasks for steel bridges with complicated structures. The robot is able to carry cameras, sensors for visual and specialized examination. Rigorous analysis of robot kinematics, adhesion force and turn-over failure has been conducted to demonstrate the stability of the proposed design. Mechanical and magnetic force analysis together with turn-over failure investigation can serve as an useful framework for designing various steel climbing robots in the future. Experimental results and field deployments prove the adhesion, climbing, inspection capability of the developed robot.
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Presentation Date
06 Aug 2019, 1:40 pm - 2:00 pm
Meeting Name
INSPIRE-UTC 2019 Annual Meeting
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Source Publication Title
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (2019: Aug. 4-7, St. Louis, MO)
Included in
Roller Chain-Like Robot for Steel Bridge Inspection
St. Louis, Missouri
This paper presents a novel design of steel bridge/structure inspection robot. Compared to most existing robots designed to work on particular surface contour of steel structures such as flat or curving, the proposed roller chain-like robot can implement and transfer smoothly on many kind of steel surfaces. The developed robot can be applied to inspection tasks for steel bridges with complicated structures. The robot is able to carry cameras, sensors for visual and specialized examination. Rigorous analysis of robot kinematics, adhesion force and turn-over failure has been conducted to demonstrate the stability of the proposed design. Mechanical and magnetic force analysis together with turn-over failure investigation can serve as an useful framework for designing various steel climbing robots in the future. Experimental results and field deployments prove the adhesion, climbing, inspection capability of the developed robot.
Comments
Financial support for this study was provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology (USDOT/OST-R) under Grant No. 69A3551747126 through INSPIRE University Transportation Center (http://inspire-utc.mst.edu) at Missouri University of Science and Technology.