Two compact robots for remote inspection of hazardous areas in nuclear power plants

A Survey of Technologies and Applications for Climbing Robots Locomotion and Adhesion

“…• Inspection: bridges (Balaguer et al (2005); Robert T. Pack and Kawamura (1997)), nuclear power plants (Savall et al (1999); Yan et al (1999)), pipelines (Park et al (2003)), wind turbines ), solar power plants (Azaiz (2008)), for scanning the external and internal surfaces of gas or oil tanks (Longo and Muscato (2004b); Park et al (2003); Sattar et al (2002); Yan et al (1999)), offshore platforms (Balaguer et al (2005)), and container ships );…”

“…With respect to the locomotion type, the simpler alternatives often make use of sliding segments, with suction cups (Backes et al (1997);Cepolina et al (2004); Choi et al (2000); Elkmann et al (2002);Savall et al (1999);Zhang et al (2004); Zhu et al (2003)) or permanent magnets (Yan et al (1999)) that grab to surfaces, in order to move (Figure 1). The main disadvantage of this solution is the difficulty in crossing cracks and obstacles.…”

Intelligent control for wall climbing robot

“…The chemical and nuclear industries are the two primary fields where climbing robots are expected to perform remote inspection and maintenance tasks in highly contaminated areas or radioactive environments, such as the retrieval of irradiated material samples [1], the inspection of storage tanks [2], the handling and manipulation of nuclear fuel [3,4]. In military applications, climbing robots have been used for the inspection of exterior of large aircrafts [5], surveillance and reconnaissance.…”

Gecko-inspired climbing behaviors on vertical and overhanging surfaces

“…Various robots have been developed that climb flat vertical surfaces using suction [16], [17], [21], magnets [6], [23], and arrays of small spines [1], [20] to attach their feet to the surface. More recently, robots have been developed that utilize adhesive materials for climbing smooth surfaces such as glass [7], [15], [18].…”