Permanent Magnetic System Design for the Wall‐Climbing Robot

Abstract

This paper presents the design and analysis of the permanent magnetic system for a wall‐climbing robot with permanent magnetic tracks. Based on the behaviour of gecko lizards, the architecture of the robot was designed and built, including the structure of the adhesion mechanism, the mechanical architecture and the anti‐toppling mechanism. The permanent magnetic adhesion mechanism and the tracked locomotion mechanism were employed in this kind of wall‐climbing robot. Through static and dynamic force analysis of the robot under different situations, design requirements for the adhesion mechanism were derived. Two different types of structures were put forward for the permanent magnetic units and are further discussed in this paper. These two types of structures are also analysed in detail. In addition, a finite‐element method was used to verify the results of magnetic units. Finally, two wall‐climbing robots, equipped with different magnetic systems described previously, are explained and their applications are discussed in this paper.