Climbing robot, brain storming

This project is an ongoing rapid prototype which is under development by Puya Afsharian & me …

Requirements :

4 x step motor
4 x El. Magnet
1 x Arduino
1 x Thin Aluminium plate

Components :

Magnet #1
Magnet #2
Magnet #3

Motor #1-1
Motor #1-2
Motor #2-1
Motor #2-2

Algorithm & states :

• Initial state :
  Mag. 1,2,3 -> ON
  Motor 11,12,21,22 -> OFF
• Lift state :
  Mag3 -> OFF
  Mag 1,2 -> ON
  Motor 12, 22 -> CCW ON
  Mag3 -> ON
• Move Up Right state :
  Mag2 -> OFF
  Motor 11 CW ON MAX
  Motor 12  CW ON -> Vertical(Parallel with chassis)
  Mag 2 -> ON
• Move Up Left state :
  Mag1 -> OFF
  Motor 21 CW ON MAX
  Motor 12  CW ON -> Vertical(Parallel with chassis)
  Mag 1 -> ON

and again to Lift state

New foot design details

I have received these along with the foot from my supervisor Mats Høvin.

Actuator Design

Encoders mounted on Motor jacket

 Arudino + Motor drivers

Encoder

Source of all details is www.robotikk.com

New feet received

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.9

More info

Found useful/inspiring designs on Youtube ...

Inspiring :-)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n99PbbntBOY
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naI-DpEBhmo
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRm3pvuxXUc

New feet design for walloid

As explained in the previous post, I received new robot design which is under development by Mats Høvin a while ago. While working on a summer-project which is highly related to my master thesis & receiving some tips discussing the new design with some friends*, I came up with some new ideas regarding climbing solutions.
My idea is a very simple grip for each foot which gives the climbing robot the ability to hang on a nail(bolt) on the wall. The curved(bent) part in the middle will be where the robot would grip the nail. I am thinking of using a flex sensor there to receive a signal every time a foot is hanging to a bolt. Meaning if we want to make a move at a time, before moving the foot, we should receive 4 bent resistor signals from the robot feet and while moving, all the way we should be receiving 3 bent resistor signals from other three remaining hanging feet.When we are finished with moving our foot to the new point of griping, we should again receive the 4th signal again ... I am still working on this idea and going to discus it as soon as my supervisor is back from his holiday.
*Thanks to my colleague Tarjei & my friend Magnus :-)

For more snapshots click read more ...

New design received from Mats

I have received new robot design, plus new motor designs from Mats Høvin(my supervisor). Right now I am working on two things at the same time. One is the new motor design which is used in this chassis and at the same time I am working on Mats design to develop a grip(feet) for this chassis. I have came up with some ideas that will soon be posted here ...

Down here you see the Mats Høvin chassis for the climbing robot :

New chassis designed by Mats

New Motor designed by Mats

New Motor chassis designed by Mats, printed in 3D printer

LATEST NEWS, Working on summer project which is highly related to my thesis

Right now I am leading a team consist of 7 students, doing a summer-project called Super Crawler(a tank-type robot which roles around with the belt) at Robotica Osloensis(Robotics student community at university of Oslo). My team and I have gained many new experiences(reverse engineering techniques, Programming different motors to work with Arudino boards in C, Communicating with Arduino borads with Java on Serial communication port, signal processing, etc) and have developed  different codes for our purposes. You can read all about it, see the photos & videos and have direct access to our codes on our project worklog. I have also added a RSS-reader on the right side of this weblog about latest news on Super Crawler project ...

These experiences would help me a lot in future development of my climbing robot, Walloid :-)

Category-partition Testing

Testing, Verification & Validation
X Robot families
INF4290
Semester Project Report

Title : Testing of a X family Robots
Akbar Faghihi Moghaddam - (Shahab)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION
2. BACKGROUND
3. DESIGN OF CASE STUDY
1. The SUT
2. The System Specification
3. Testing Phase
1. Enable / Disable Motor
2. Restart
3. Rotation of the robot arm
1. Base Choice(BC)
2. Each Choice(EC)
3. All combinations (AC)
4. ANALYSIS OF THE RESULT
5. LESSONS LEARNED AND OPEN ISSUES
6. REFERENCES

Possible Designs #2, Walloid

Rope Climbing ...

RIWEA: Robot for the Inspection of Wind Energy Converter Rotor Blades
The objective of the project was to develop novel technologies to completely capture the condition of wind energy converter rotor blades. Such state-of-the-art inspection methods as thermography, ultrasonics and high resolution cameras in conjunction with innovative robots make a reliable, objective and integrated analysis of blade condition possible.
Wind energy converter rotor blades must be inspected for damage at regular intervals. Primarily made of glass fiber reinforced plastics, rotor blades are one of a wind energy converter's most highly stressed components. 

Source : Fraunhofer

Possible Design, Walloid

Nano Tech, possible solution for Walloid ?

We can clearly see in this test that this kind of nano technology can operate carrying heavy weights(an adult human body). If we can be sure that this solution would operate in wet & extremely cold condition, can't this nano technology be a good start for Walloid ?
Source : Ted.com/talks

Possible electronic solution, walloid

The whole idea is based on java program being able to steer the motors through Adruino cards. The java program would be run on an Linux OS on an Eee motherboard. As we have 12 motors for controlling the robot, we would be needing a USB hub with 12 outputs.

Streaming solutions

http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Streaming_Protocol

Table of Climbing Solutions

Climbing solutions :

Solution	Pros	Cons
Grip, Ring Bolt	Low coast(path), Stable	Path needed, High precision required, Unstable under special condition(under windy situation or even uncalculated torque the robot might loose stability)
Grip, Nail	Low coast(path), Very stable	Path needed, Relatively High precision required
Nano tech, bio inspiered	Path free, Relatively stable(in case of supported weight)	High coast of producing the material, Question regarding weight issue(Some studies show they are reliable), If functional in extreme cold  and wet condition
Lock(IKEA type) itself to the wall	Relatively Low coast(path), Extra stable,	Path needed, High precision required
Suction cup	Easy implementation, Path free	The path should be totally clear and glossy for the solution to work(unstable and fear of robot to fall)
Magnet, pre-path	Low coast(path), Very stable, Path free(Platforms are made of metal variants)	Path needed(depends on the materials that the workspace is made of), Extra power for 4xel. magnets, Unstable in special condition(in case of ice covering the magnet -> in design of platforms up to 10mm ice is considered in calculations)
Magnet, path builder	Very stable, Path builder,	Extra arm for path building, Slow, Exact place on the path can not be screwed too many times, Extra power for 4xel. magnets, Unstable in special condition(in case of ice covering the magnet -> in design of platforms up to 10mm ice is considered in calculations)
Screw itself to the wall	Extra stable	Exact place on the path can not be screwed too many times, Unstable in special condition(in case of ice covering the magnet -> in design of platforms up to 10mm ice is considered in calculations),
?Glue ?	?	?

Early Design, Walloid

The hardware design(X2 Module) designed by my supervisor Mats Høvin. I have to start designing the end effector which will contain the solution for climbing.
Source : robotikk.com

Some wild ideas about climbing feet

Some early wild drawings about how the climbing feet should look like, in case of using ring bolts …

Front feet, climbing robot

Back foot, climbing robot

Suction cup solution ...

Suction cup solution for a climbing robot and some early drawings ...

Suction cup solution

suction cups solution climbing stairs

Introduction

This is my first post here at Walloid Project weblog. This weblog is made to be a place for me to publish my works about my master thesis. Walloid is my master thesis at university of Oslo. A climbing robot that can climb the walls and walk on the roof. The final aim of Walloid is to be a prototype for a real world model that can replace human workers, where it is too dangerous for mankind to operate. The actual thought was to make it even water proof with swimming abilities to make it the best candidate for oil fields in the middle of the sea, in a way that it can swim between different platforms, checks on oil pipes on the way and eventually fix the problems.

Walloid will have several versions which every version would try to reach some expected goals. The version names(C#S#) are the short version of C(limbing)#S(wimming)#. Well the swimming part will not be a part of my master thesis and Walloid C2S0 is the goal for my master project.

• Walloid C1S0 : A remote controlled(through my navigation program) functional walking(on the floor and not the walls or roof) robot.
• Walloid C2S0 : A smart climbing robot which takes its steps autonomously and is controlled totally by the navigation program(monitor its environment by sensors & cameras).
• Walloid C3S0 : A smart climbing robot with image processing abilities.
• Walloid C3S1 : A smart climbing robot with abilities to perform in underwater condition.
• Walloid C3S2 : A waterproof smart climbing robot with swimming abilities.

As said my master project would not exceed Walloid C2S0 and the rest of the plan either will be a hobby/Phd/or even a dream job at an oil field company here in Norway :-)

Wish me lots of luck ...

Shahab.