A miniature biped wall-climbing robot for inspection of magnetic metal surfaces

In order to carry out automatic ultrasonic inspection tasks, a miniature biped wall-climbing robot, the so-called MiniBibot-W, has been developed in inspiration of inchworm climbing. Developed with a modular method, this robot consists of six joint modules connected in series as the main body and two electromagnetic adhesion modules at the two ends as the two feet. An ultrasonic probe is mounted to one of the feet. MiniBibot-W thus can not only climb on magnetic surfaces with high mobility, but also perform ultrasonic inspections. In this paper, the development of the robotic system is first presented, and then three climbing gaits and inspection action are introduced. Driving force and adhesion force are analyzed to ensure the safety during climbing and manipulating procedure. A series of experiments are conducted to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed robotic system and the analysis. A potential application with MiniBibot-W is also demonstrated in ultrasonic detection.