Fluid Model of Sliding Suction Cup of Wall-climbing Robots

Abstract

The adhering capability, one of the most important performance indexes of wall-climbing robots(WCRs), should be taken into account when a WCR is designed. This paper proposes a novel approach for investigating the adhering characteristics of the sliding suction cup (SSCs) using fluid network theory to enhance the adhering capability of WCRs. The fluid models of the SSCs of two WCRs are developed and equivalent circuits in three cases are presented. The dynamic responses of negative pressure in SSCs are obtained and validated by a set of experiments. It indicated that the theoretical analysis is reasonable and can give some valuable design criteria on the structure parameters of SSCs and control strategies of suction force of SSCs.