Intelligent coordinate control over cooperative micro robots for nondestructive testing of large steel plates

摘要

Multiple, lightweight micro-robots configured to work in a cooperative environment are considered in many applications of Non destructive testing (NDT) where they replace a single large robotic inspection system. Their main advantages over the single larger system are that they are more mobile, do not require a heavy umbilical cord and can be programmed to work in a multi-robot environment using an intelligent software agent. Effective intelligent control of these robots is very challenging because it has to be adaptable to suit different application needs. This paper reports the development of an intelligent co-ordinate control over mobile micro-robots to perform multitasking for non-destructive testing of steel plates. The knowledge based agent uses the forward chaining inference engine that enables control of robot movements on a steel plate. The path for a rectangular shaped work area has been generated by developing an algorithm that follows required robot movements for steel plate inspection. An algorithm for the division of work area for cooperating robots has also been developed. The algorithms are tested in MATLAB simulation before testing in real-time. The results show considerable improvements for the micro robots over a single large inspection robot.