Robicen: A wall-climbing pneumatic robot for inspection in nuclear power plants

Abstract A wall-climbing robot intended for inspection in nuclear power plants has been developed in the context of a cooperative research project which is being carried out by Iberdrola and Nuclenor (Electric Companies), on the one side, and CEIT (Research Centre), on the other. In the first phase of the project, the tasks to be accomplished with the robotic system are of an inspection nature in boiling-water reactor plants. The robot, small in size and modular, is made up of pneumatic components exclusively. Vacuum suction cups are used for sticking the robot to walls to be climbed. The robot motion, made up of both elementary translations and rotations, is accomplished by means of pneumatic cylinders, which constitute the body of the mobile robot. A personal computer is used to command robot motion and a microprocessor controls the electronic valves of all pneumatic components. The paper presents the robotic system conceptual design and gives a detailed description of the mobile robot and its motion.

[1]  M. Kakikura,et al.  Development of Wall Coating Removal Robot , 1992 .

[2]  Derek W. Seward.  Robots in construction. , 1992 .

[3]  H.T. Roman.  Robots cut risks and costs in nuclear power plants , 1991, IEEE Computer Applications in Power.

[4]  J. J. Kerley,et al.  The climbing crawling robot , 1992 .

[5]  Akira Nishi.  A biped walking robot capable of moving on a vertical wall , 1992 .

[6]  Shinji Yamamoto.  Development of inspection robot for nuclear power plant , 1992, Proceedings 1992 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[7]  J. Taguchi,et al.  Development of Nuclear Power Plant Automated Remote Patrol System , 1983 .

[8]  Miguel A. Serna,et al.  Wall-climbing robot for inspection in nuclear power plants , 1994, Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[9]  Harry T. Roman,et al.  Robot applications in nuclear power plants , 1990 .

[10]  R. Schilling.  Telerobots in the nuclear industry , 1992 .

[11]  H.T. Roman,et al.  The year 2000 power plant , 1989, IEEE Computer Applications in Power.