Safety and Survivability Analysis of a Wall-Climbing Robot

In this paper, an explanation of the need for the climbing robot is given first. Second, a safety analysis is performed to illustrate how the robot is guarded against falling. This safety analysis is used to determine the design forces required on the suction cups that hold the robot in place. Finally, a survivability analysis was done to show that the robot can withstand a drop from a height of 1.3 meters if it were to fall. If the robot does fall, it would be desirable to minimize the amount of damage on the equipment mounted on the robot. The method presented in this paper proposes to swing the arms of the robot into the direction of the impact, using them to absorb the majority of the impact energy. For analysis of the fall protection system, a multibody model was developed to simulate its dynamics during a fall.