Falcon: A False Ceiling Inspection Robot

Abstract

Frequent inspections are essential for false ceilings to maintain the service infrastructures, such as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, and the structure of false ceilings. Human-labor-based conventional inspection procedures for false ceilings suffer many shortcomings, including safety concerns. Thus, robot-aided solutions are demanded for false ceiling inspections similar to other building maintenance services. However, less work has been conducted on developing robot-aided solutions for false ceiling inspections. This paper proposes a novel design for a robot intended for false ceiling inspections named Falcon. The compact size and the tracked wheel design of the robot allow it to traverse obstacles such as runners and lighting fixtures. The robot’s ability to autonomously follow the perimeter of a false ceiling can improve the productivity of the inspection process since the heading of the robot often changes due to the nature of the terrain, and continuous heading correction is an overhead for a teleoperator. Therefore, a Perimeter-Following Controller (PFC) based on fuzzy logic was integrated into the robot. Experimental results obtained by deploying a prototype of the robot design to a false ceiling testbed confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed PFC in perimeter following and the robot’s features, such as the ability to traverse on runners and fixtures in a false ceiling.

Robot-Inclusive False Ceiling Design Guidelines

“…In the Falcon robot class, the Falcon Mini and the Falcon Fetch is shown in Figure 3 while its specifications are seen in Table 2. Studies of deployments and testing of the Falcon Mini have been mentioned in [45,46] with the robots deployed for tasks such as the detection of rodent activity, as seen in Figure 4.…”

“…Two variants of the Falcon inspection robots, the Falcon Mini and the Falcon Fetch, along with their dimensions, are depicted in Figure 3, respectively. These robots are developed to operate within the plenum of the suspended false ceiling [45,46]. While Falcon Mini is designed with a smaller build to navigate tight spaces, Falcon Fetch is built with additional tools such as a vacuum and a receptacle for basic cleaning works, and is also able to deploy rodenticide within the plenum to tackle the problem of rodent infestations.…”

“…Both the Falcon Fetch and Falcon Mini robots utilise a tracked drive mechanism, which would help the robots overcome the obstacles more effectively as compared to separate wheels or legged effectors [46][47][48]. Wheeled and tracked mechanisms were utilised as they consist of fewer components as compared to legged or crawling modes of locomotion [49].…”

“…Robot-inclusive guidelines would thus be needed to tackle the problems faced by robotic deployments in the plenum to allow robots to function more productively and efficiently. The guidelines would thus be progressive in nature, but would account for existing technological conditions, which would mature over time as more capabilities would be added on as mentioned in [46]. These guidelines are not exhaustive, and are to be updated as new false ceiling regulations, as well as inspection robot models, are refined over time.…”

“…Hence, it is important to ensure that the height threshold of obstacles is within the robot's limits. In the case of the Falcon, which was designed to traverse over typical runners [46], the maximum obstacle height it can overcome was recorded to be 55 mm [45]. The cross-section profile of runners should be chosen considering the interface in which the robot would come in contact with the runner during its attempt to overcome it.…”