Wall Climbing Robot

2022: Announcement of a robot capable of navigating curved steel walls

Japanese industrial giant Sumitomo Heavy Industries has unveiled a robot capable of moving along curved steel walls using magnetic mechanisms. The Wall Climbing Robot project was implemented as part of a program launched by the company in 2018.

Magnetic-clutch wheeled robots are widely used in the manufacture and maintenance of large steel structures such as ships and industrial facilities, the developers said. Most conventional wall climbing robots are designed for flat surfaces. To adapt such robots to curved structures, it is necessary to either make the robot smaller than the curvature of the surface, or to design the robot to correspond to a certain surface shape and direction of motion. This means that these robots are limited in the range of surfaces they can navigate, the tasks they can perform, and the types of tools they can use.

Sumitomo unveils robot capable of navigating curved steel walls

In this project, we invented a new spherical wheel containing a magnet that can rotate around two axes, explained in a press release from Sumitomo Heavy Industries. - Using this design, we developed a robot that can adapt and move on curved surfaces, which was impossible with conventional robots. In addition to moving along curved walls, the new robot can also easily attach to and detach from walls, changing the direction of the magnetic force, and overcome corners without applying any complex controls.

In the manufacture of large steel structures, tasks such as welding at height and on curved surfaces are difficult to automate and require high qualification. The new robot can be used to perform such tasks and is expected to reduce the physical load on workers, thereby creating safer and smarter production sites of the next generation.^[1]

Notes

Шаблон:Remarks