摘要
This paper proposes a new type of tri-sectional wheel-based cable climbing robot which is able to climb up vertical cylindrical cables of a cable-stayed bridge. The robot is composed of three pairs of wheels equally spaced circularly which are joined by six connecting boards to form a whole closed hexagonal body to clasp a cable. The whole design is entirely modular to enable to assenably the robot on-siteeasy eaoily. To analyze the static features of the robot, a mathematical model of climbing is deduced. Furthermore, taking a cable with a diameter of 80mm as an example, we calculate the design parameters of the robot. For safly landing in the case of electrical accident, a centrifugal speed regulator is proposed and applied to consume useless energy generated when the robot is slipping down along the cables. A simplified mathematical model of the landing mechanism is deduced. Finally, several experiments on the climbing mechanism demonstrate that the robot can carry payloads less than 2.2kg to climb up a cable with diameters varying from 65mm to 205mm.
基金
Supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Programme of China （No. 2006AA04Z234） and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation （ No. 20090461051 ）
