Development of Surveying Robotic Systems at High Pipe Structures with a Visual-based Pole Climbing Robot

摘要

In order to survey radiation levels at hazardous zones, various kind of mobile robot is needed, as a human operator can not access to the radioactively contaminated areas. Especially in the nuclear facilities, we use the mobile robot to inspect the radiation contamination level, clean up the contaminated materials, and retrieve the wastes to the disposal area. We developed a robotic system for retrieval of contaminated waste from hazardous zones. The system consists of mobile robot manipulator (as a mother) and a pole climbing robot (as a child). A pole climbing robot is used to inspect or repair pipe structures. The robot we developed has a 5 degree-of-freedom manipulator and two grippers, and moves along cylindrical pipes, overcoming obstacles such as flanges and valves like an inch-worm. The robot works in places very high from the ground, and thus the robot should be able to grasp the next pipes semi-autonomously as the operator cannot see the next pipe for the robot to grasp.