Electromagnetically Adhering and Self‐Inductive Sensing Claw for Continuum Climbing Robots: Design, Control, and Applications

摘要

Continuum wall‐climbing robots with a compact structure and omnidirectional movement capabilities can be used for the internal space inspection of complex equipment. Reliable adhesive capacity and sensitive distance feedback guarantee the stable operation of the robot. Consequently, an actively deformable claw equipped with multiple adhering and sensing units is developed, which can realize enveloping adhesion and distance feedback on a large curved surface. The flexible claw realizes an integrated design of the physical structure and coupling design of the excitation circuit. Both the adhering and sensing units use high‐permeability permalloy as their magnetic core and have the same closed magnetic circuit. Under the excitation of DC parallel with double winding, the electromagnetic adhesion effect is activated. Under the excitation of the AC series with unilateral winding, a self‐inductive microdisplacement sensor is realized. A fuzzy controller is established with the distance information of the sensing unit as the input and the joint angle and claw deformation as two outputs. A robot based on the fuzzy controller realizes automatic adhesion to surfaces with different curvatures and reliable applications in nuclear reaction equipment.