Glass facade cleaning robot with passive suction cups and self-locking trapezoidal lead screw drive

Tun, Thein Than; Elara, Mohan Rajesh; Kalimuthu, Manivannan; Vengadesh, Ayyalusami

doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2018.09.006

Cited by 29 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It contains key technologies with facade adsorption, designs of lifting device, and related control methods. Facade adsorption technologies for glass curtain walls include the passive sucker, [1][2][3] the active sucker, 4,5 the thrust adsorption by using fans, [6][7][8][9] and so on. Lifting technologies include rope driven, 6,8,9 leg types, 4 wheel types, 3,7 and sliding frame types.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling and control of a novel facade cleaning robot with four-ducted fan drive

Wang

Feng

2021

International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

With the development of modern cities, the demand for cleaning glass curtain walls in urban skyscrapers is increasing, and therefore, many researches on facade cleaning robots have been carried out in the past few decades. In this article, a novel type of facade cleaning robot based on four-ducted fan is proposed. To improve the load capacity of the robot, the lifting and horizontal movement are, respectively, supported by an independent lifting mechanism and a lateral movement mechanism. Unlike the previous passive and active suction, the powerful suction power of the robot is provided by the four-ducted fan. Meanwhile, the obstacle-climbing force is caused by the forward of the four-ducted fan that improves the crossing obstacle ability. In addition, an incremental sliding mode algorithm is applied for controlling the posture when the robot crosses obstacles, which can ensure the stable performance of the cleaning robot under disturbance. Some simulations and experiments are conducted and the results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the designed facade cleaning robot.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling and control of a novel facade cleaning robot with four-ducted fan drive

Wang

Feng

2021

International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thus, cleaning robots that are capable of attaching to a vertical surface and locomotion with the aid of frictional forces arisen from the adhesion to the surface are preferred. In this regard, cleaning robots that use passive suction cups for attaching to vertical surfaces have been developed [12,18,19]. However, the loss of negative pressure during the operation on rough/uneven surfaces, such as cement walls, is the critical shortcoming that hinders the usage of passive suction cups for robots operated in walls [20,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the loss of negative pressure during the operation on rough/uneven surfaces, such as cement walls, is the critical shortcoming that hinders the usage of passive suction cups for robots operated in walls [20,21]. Apart from this, the requirement of complex mechanical and control designs to manage the adhesion for facilitating locomotion is also one of the major concerns of climbing mechanisms based on passive suction cups [19][20][21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Control of a Wall Cleaning Robot with Adhesion-Awareness

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wall cleaning robots are developed to cater to the demands of the building maintenance sector. The ability to climb vertical surfaces is one of the crucial requirements of a wall cleaning robot. Robots that can climb vertical surfaces by adhesion to a surface are preferred since those do not require additional support structures. Vacuum suction mechanisms are widely used in this regard. The suction force acting on the robot due to the negative pressure built up is used by these robots for the adhesion. A robot will fall off or overturn when the pressure difference drops down a certain threshold. In contrast, if the pressure difference becomes too high, the excessive amount of frictional forces will hinder the locomotion ability. Moreover, a wall cleaning robot should be capable of adapting the adhesion force to maintain the symmetry between safe adhesion and reliable locomotion since adhesion forces which are too low or too high hinder the safety of adhesion and reliability of locomotion respectively. Thus, the pressure difference needs to be sustained within a desired range to ensure a robot’s safety and reliability. However, the pressure difference built up by a vacuum system may unpredictably vary due to unexpected variation of air leakages due to irregularities in surfaces. The existing wall cleaning robots that use vacuum suction mechanisms for adhesion are not aware of the adhesion status, or subsequently responding to them. Therefore, this paper proposes a design for a wall cleaning robot that is capable of adapting vacuum power based on the adhesion-awareness to improve safety and reliability. A fuzzy inference system is proposed here to adapt the vacuum power based on the variation of the adhesion and the present power setting of the vacuum. Moreover, an application of fuzzy logic to produce a novel controlling criterion for a wall cleaning robot to ensure safety and reliability of operation is proposed. A fuzzy inference system was used to achieve the control goals, since the exact underlying dynamics of the vacuum-adhesion cannot be mathematically modeled. The design details of the robot are presented with due attention to the proposed control strategy. Experimental results confirmed that the performance of a robot with proposed adhesion-awareness surpasses that of a robot with no adhesion-awareness in the aspects of safety, reliability, and efficiency. The limitations of the work and future design suggestions are also discussed.

show abstract

“…In the process of traversing optimized moving paths, which prevent collision of the devices with obstacles, uncleaned zones are generated near obstacles such as façades. Another popular robot is Gecko [13][14][15], which was developed using a highly effective vacuum suction pad [16][17][18]. However, the applicability of these robots are limited owing to the shapes of the buildings and the decorative fittings on them.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated technique for high-pressure water-based window cleaning and accompanying parametric study

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The maintenance of buildings has become an important issue with the construction of many high-rise buildings in recent years. However, the cleaning of the outer walls of buildings is performed in highly hazardous environments over long periods, and many accidents occur each year. Various robots are being studied and developed to reduce these incidents and to relieve workers from hazardous tasks. Herein, we propose a method of spraying high-pressure water using a pump and nozzle, which differs from conventional methods. The cleaning performance parameters, such as water pressure, spray angle, and spray distance, were optimized using the Taguchi method. Cleaning experiments were performed on window specimens that were contaminated artificially. The cleaning performance of the proposed method was evaluated using the image-evaluation method. The optimum condition was determined based on the results of a sensitive analysis performed on the image data. In addition, the reaction force due to high pressure and impact force on the specimens were investigated. These forces were not sufficient to affect the propeller thrust or cause damage to the building’s surface. We expect to perform field tests in the near future based on the output of this research.

show abstract

Glass facade cleaning robot with passive suction cups and self-locking trapezoidal lead screw drive

Cited by 29 publications

References 10 publications

Modeling and control of a novel facade cleaning robot with four-ducted fan drive

Modeling and control of a novel facade cleaning robot with four-ducted fan drive

Design and Control of a Wall Cleaning Robot with Adhesion-Awareness

Automated technique for high-pressure water-based window cleaning and accompanying parametric study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About