Wall Climbing Vehicle Using Internally Balanced Magnetic Unit

Summary

The fields on which a robot has to work are now expanding, from inside of a factory to outer environments. Robots are even expected to walk on vertical surfaces of buildings and structures to perform various types of works. This paper discusses a new mechanism of such robot which moves around the iron walls of the steam boiler of a nuclear power plant or sides of ships sustaining itself with magnetic sticking devices.

At first, a new magnetic sticking device is introduced. The device, named “Internally-Balanced Magnet” (abbreviated “IB Magnet”) consisting of permanent magnet, spring, control rod and frame, enables to produce strong sticking force of the permanent magnet itself and at the same time can easily release it from the fixing surface. The validity of this mechanism is successfully demonstrated by human experiments where a man wearing four IB Magnets with manual operating levers on hands and feet walks around iron wall and ceiling.

Subsequently, a magnetic sticking vehicle using six IB Magnets is constructed. It is about 60 kg in weight, 700 × 700 × 300 mm in scale and 100 mm/sec in maximum locomotion speed. Stable and relatively fast linear motion as well as turning motion on walls is experimentally demonstrated.