This paper presents a cooperative climbing robot which follows a welding robot for the inspection of long weld lines simultaneously with the automatic welding process. The robot is designed to climb on ferrous surfaces with strong neodymium magnets elevated by 20mm from the work surface for adhesion which is able to cope with 20mm height obstacles on the surface, such as weld caps etc. There are two driving wheels differentially controlled to provide smooth and continuous movement and two omniwheels, one in the front and the other one in the back to support the robot. The design of two sections jointed by a hinge joint mechanism increases the robot capability of moving on both concave and convex curvatures as well as transferring across angled surfaces. The robot is able to follow the welding robot by looking at the welding robot and the hot weld point using a number of sensors. The wireless control of the robot expands the working range of the robot without concerning the umbilical problem experiencing on many climbing robots. The safety factor of the robot climbing on vertical surface with the NDT payload is 2.3.
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