PRESENT AND FUTURE TRENDS OF WALL CLIMBING ROBOT’S DEVELOPMENT FOR EXTREME CONDITIONS
Wall climbing mobile robots are meant for fulfilling various technological operations on complex vertical, slope surfaces of building constructions, hulls of ships, vessels or tanks. Such operations execution may be dangerous for people especially in the cases of emergencies and accidents resulted with high temperatures, increased concentration of gas, high radiation levels and other dangerous, risky and hazard environments.The paper observes current state of wall climbing robot’s research and development. The structure and capabilities of wall climbing robot’s of different types are described: double-platform, multiple-linked, «sliding seal», vortexed. Different methods of coupling with surface irregularities are under consideration. The robots can be equipped with one or more technological manipulators depending on the solving tasks - such as inspection, decontamination, fire fighting, environmental monitoring, nondestructive inspection or test analysis, clearing, coating/coloring. Possibilities of mobile robots’ perspective applications are discussed.To increase effectiveness and reliability of the robot, the methods of adaptation to changing environmental conditions by means of multi-sensors control based on feedback loops, are reviewed.The work has been supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant 12-08-00374-a, and Program№1 of Russian Academy of Sciences’ Department for Energy, Engineering, Mechanics and Control Processes.