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英语原文：
Adhesion Control for the Alicia3 Climbing Robot
D. Longo and G. Muscato
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica Elettronica e dei Sistemi, Universit`a degli
Studi di Catania, viale A. Doria 6, 95125 Catania Italy
Abstract.
Climbing robots are useful devices that can be adopted in a variety of
applications like maintenance, building, inspection and safety in the process and
construction industries.
The main target of the Alicia3 robot is to inspect non porous vertical wall with
any
regard
for
the
material
of
the
wall.
To
meet
this
target,
a
pneumatic-like
adhesion
for
the
system
has
been
selected.
Also
the
system
can
move
over
the
surface with
a
suitable velocity by means of two DC motors and overcomesome
obstacle thanks to a special cup sealing.
This
adhesion
technology
requires
a
suitable
controller
to
improve
system
reliability.
This
is
because
small
obstacles
passing
under
the
cup
and
wall
irregularitycan vary the value of the internal pressure of the cup putting the robot
in some anomalous working conditions. The methodologies used for deriving an
accuratesystem
model
and
controller
will
be
explained
and
some
result
will
be
presented inthis work.
1 Introduction
Climbing
robots
can
be
used
to
inspect
vertical
walls
to
search
for
potential
damage or problems on external or internal surface of
aboveground/underground
etrochemical storage tanks, concrete walls and metallic structures[1
–
4]. By using
this system as
carrier, it will be possible to conduct anumber of NDI over the wall
by carrying suitable instrumentation [5, 6].The main application of the proposed
system
is
the
automatic
inspectionof
the
external
surface
of
aboveground
petrochemical
storage
tanks
where
it
is
very
important
to
perform
periodic
inspections (rate of corrosion, risk of air or water pollution) at different rates, as
standardized
by
the
AmericanPetroleum
Institute
[7].
The
system
can
be
also
adopted to inspect concrete
dams.
While
these
kinds
of
inspections
are
important
to
prevent
ecological
disasters
and
risks
for
the
people
working
around
the
plant,
these
are
very
expensive
because
scaffolding
is
often
required
and
can
be
very
dangerous