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英语原文：

Adhesion Control for the Alicia3 Climbing Robot

D. Longo and G. Muscato

Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica Elettronica e dei Sistemi, Universit`a degli

Studi di Catania, viale A. Doria 6, 95125 Catania Italy

Abstract.

Climbing robots are useful devices that can be adopted in a variety of

applications like maintenance, building, inspection and safety in the process and

construction industries.

The main target of the Alicia3 robot is to inspect non porous vertical wall with

any

regard

for

the

material

of

the

wall.

To

meet

this

target,

a

pneumatic-like

adhesion

for

the

system

has

been

selected.

Also

the

system

can

move

over

the

surface with

a

suitable velocity by means of two DC motors and overcomesome

obstacle thanks to a special cup sealing.

This

adhesion

technology

requires

a

suitable

controller

to

improve

system

reliability.

This

is

because

small

obstacles

passing

under

the

cup

and

wall

irregularitycan vary the value of the internal pressure of the cup putting the robot

in some anomalous working conditions. The methodologies used for deriving an

accuratesystem

model

and

controller

will

be

explained

and

some

result

will

be

presented inthis work.

1 Introduction

Climbing

robots

can

be

used

to

inspect

vertical

walls

to

search

for

potential

damage or problems on external or internal surface of

aboveground/underground

etrochemical storage tanks, concrete walls and metallic structures[1

–

4]. By using

this system as

carrier, it will be possible to conduct anumber of NDI over the wall

by carrying suitable instrumentation [5, 6].The main application of the proposed

system

is

the

automatic

inspectionof

the

external

surface

of

aboveground

petrochemical

storage

tanks

where

it

is

very

important

to

perform

periodic

inspections (rate of corrosion, risk of air or water pollution) at different rates, as

standardized

by

the

AmericanPetroleum

Institute

[7].

The

system

can

be

also

adopted to inspect concrete

dams.

While

these

kinds

of

inspections

are

important

to

prevent

ecological

disasters

and

risks

for

the

people

working

around

the

plant,

these

are

very

expensive

because

scaffolding

is

often

required

and

can

be

very

dangerous