Guanghua Zong

Sky Cleaner 3: a real pneumatic climbing robot for glass-wall cleaning

There are large numbers of high-rise buildings with glass curtain walls that require constant cleaning and is carried out using permanent gondola systems. This is a laborious and dangerous work in midair. Due to a lack of uniform building structure, wall cleaning and maintenance of high-rise buildings is becoming one of the most appropriate fields for robotization. The development of walking and climbing offers a novel alternative solution to glass-wall cleaning. Application of a type of cleaning robotic system can free workers from this hazardous work and realize an automatic cleaning of high-rise buildings, thereby improving the technological level and productivity of the service industry.

A Novel Reconfigurable Robot for Urban Search and Rescue

This paper presents a novel mobile robot for urban search and rescue based on reconfiguration. The system consists of three identical modules; actually each module is an entire robotic system that can perform distributed activities. To achieve highly adaptive locomotion capabilities, the robots serial and parallel mechanisms form an active joint, enabling it to change its shape in three dimensions. A docking mechanism enables adjacent modules to connect or disconnect flexibly and automatically. This mechanical structure and the control system are introduced in detail, followed by a description of the locomotion capabilities. In the end, the successful on-site tests confirm the principles described above and the robots ability.

A series of pneumatic glass‐wall cleaning robots for high‐rise buildings

– This paper presents the design of climbing robots for glass‐wall cleaning., – A systemic analysis of the basic functions of a glass‐wall cleaning system is given based on the research of working targets. Then the constraints for designing a glass‐wall cleaning robot are discussed. The driving method, the attachment principle, mechanical structure and unique aspects of three pneumatic robots named Sky Cleaners follow. In the end a summary of the main special features is given. All three climbing robots are tested on site., – Our groups spent several years in designing and developing a series of robots named Sky Cleaners which are totally actuated by pneumatic cylinders and sucked to the glass walls with vacuum grippers in mid‐air. It was found that they can meet the requirements of glass‐wall cleaning., – The air source, cleaning liquid and control signals should be provided by the supporting vehicle stationed on the ground. Even if the robots are intelligent, the suitable working height is below 50 m because the weight of the hoses has to be taken into account when the robots work in mid‐air., – The cleaning robotic systems can avoid workers presence in a hazardous environment and realize an automatic cleaning, furthermore reduce operation costs and improve the technological level and productivity of the service industry in the building maintenance., – Sky Cleaner robots can move and do cleaning on the plane glass wall or the special curve wall with a small angle between the glasses. The first two prototypes are mainly used for research and the last one is a real product designing for cleaning the glass surface of Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.

Realization of a Service Climbing Robot for Glass-wall Cleaning

Wall cleaning and maintenance of high-rise buildings is becoming one of the most appropriate fields for robotization due to its current low level of automation and lack of uniform building structure. The last decade has seen an increasing interest in developing and employing service robots for cleaning glass walls which is always very dangerous and strenuous in mid-air. In this paper, we propose a new kind of cleaning robot named sky cleaner which is totally actuated by pneumatic cylinders and sucked to the glass wall with vacuum suckers. The constraints for designing are discussed. After that, the drive method, principle of attachment, mechanical construction and unique aspects are presented in detail. A testing simulation shows that the robot can cross an obstacle safely and reliably when it moves from one column glass to another in the right-left direction. In the end, a summary of the main special features of the cleaning robot are given

A novel approach to pneumatic position servo control of a glass wall cleaning robot

Taking Shanghai Science and Technology Museum as the operation target, the robot named skycleaner which is totally actuated by pneumatic cylinders and is sucked to the glass walls with vacuum suckers is presented. In order to solve the problems of lower stiffness and the nonlinear movement characteristic of the pneumatic system, a method of segment and variable bang-bang controller is proposed to implement the accurate control of the position servo system using the principle of pneumatic pulse width-modulation (PWM). Testing results show that the controller can effectively improve the control quality. This implies that the method can meet the requirements of realization.

A Novel Family of Leaf-Type Compliant Joints : Combination of Two Isosceles-Trapezoidal Flexural Pivots

The leaf-type isosceles-trapezoidal flexural (LITF) pivot consists of two compliant beams and two rigid bodies. For a single LITF pivot, the range of motion is small while the center-shift is relatively large. The capability of performance can be improved greatly by the combination of two LITF pivots. Base on the pseudorigid-body (PRB) model of a LITF pivot, a method to construct the double-LITF pivots is presented by regarding a single LITF pivot as a the configurable flexure module. The trends of the center-shift are mainly considered by using this method with the combination of two LIFT pivots. Eight types of double-LITF pivots are synthesized. Compared with the single LIFT pivot, the stroke becomes larger, and stiffness becomes smaller. Four of them have the increased center-shift. The other four have the decreased center-shift. Two of the double-LITF pivots are selected as the examples to explain the proposed method. The comparison between PRB model and finite element analysis result shows the validity and effectiveness of the method. DOI: 10.1115/1.3046140

Effective Pneumatic Scheme and Control Strategy of a Climbing Robot for Class Wall Cleaning on High-rise Buildings

A new kind of pneumatic climbing robot is presented to meet the requirements of glass-wall cleaning for high-rise buildings, which is totally actuated by pneumatic cylinders and attached to the glass wall with vacuum suckers. Using the pneumatic actuators the climbing robot can be made lightweight and dexterous. At the same time the movement driven by pneumatic actuators has the characteristic of passive compliance. In order to solve the problems of high speed movement for the Y cylinder and precise position control of the X cylinder, the applied pneumatic schemes of X and Y cylinders are employed to drive the high-speed on-off solenoid valves and an ordinary valve to adjust the air-flow and pressure to the cylinders. Furthermore a method of segment and variable bang-bang controller is proposed to implement the accurate control of the position servo system for the X cylinder during the sideways movement. Testing results show that the novel approach can effectively improve the control quality. This cleaning robot can meet the requirements of realization.

Initial development of a flapping propelled unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV)

This paper studied the swimming modes of aquatic animals, then the development and experiment of a flapping propelled, radio-controlled UUV are described. The vehicle consists of a pair of flexible flapping wings as propeller; a pare of elevators and a rudder at the end of the shell provide the hydro-kinetic force for attitude control. The UUV prototype has a 70 cm wingspan, 50 cm length and a tonnage of 3.8 kg, with three-channel radio control system and a 1300 mAh M-Poly rechargeable battery for no less than 20 minutes of swimming. Speed achieved 0.7 m/s in the swimming test and the speed-length ratio is 1.4. The flexible biotic UUV should be further developed to adapt practical uses.

Locomotion Capabilities of a Novel Reconfigurable Robot with 3 DOF Active Joints for Rugged Terrain

Reconfigurable robots consist of many modules which are able to change the way they are connected. As a result, the robots have the capability of adopting different configurations to match various tasks and suit complex environments. This paper presents a novel field robot named JL-I which consists of three uniform modules. With the docking mechanisms, the modules can connect or disconnect flexibly and automatically. Furthermore the active joints formed by serial and parallel mechanisms endow the robot with the ability of changing shape in three dimensions. Consequently useful locomotion capabilities, such as crossing high vertical obstacles, getting self-recovery when the robot is upside-down are achieved. After describing the structural principle of the robot, the related kinematics analysis follows. In the end, the successful on-site tests confirm the principles described above and the robots ability

Visually Servoed Suturing for Robotic Microsurgical Keratoplasty

The robotic system is developed to improve the effect of microsurgery for keratoplasty. The autonomous suturing should be qualified for the operational requirements of microsurgical keratoplasty. Poorly modeled mechanism of robotic micromanipulator and slight movements of surgical objective point are hindrance for precise position and orientation of end-needle. Visual servo control is available to overcome these obstacles. An appropriate scheme of robotic vision is proposed. On the basis of biological binocular vision, a feasible method of calibration and reconstruction for surgical microscope is adopted. The model parameters estimated by linear regression are evaluated for accuracy, stability and robustness. The visual servo control is applied for guiding robotic end-needle to reach the penetrating objective point. The visual servo control has look-and-move architecture based on image feature. The experimental results show that the robotic system for microsurgical keratoplasty can fulfil the surgical task of suturing penetration precisely