Autonomous plant maintenance robot (mechanism of Mark IV and its actuator characteristics)

Deals with the new mechanism of a maintenance robot, Mark IV. The Mark IV has a mechanism capable of inspecting surfaces of storage tanks as well as pipeline outer surfaces. The main features of Mark IV are as follows: (i) the robot has a multi-joint structure, so that it has better adaptabilities to surface curvatures of pipelines and storage tanks; (ii) the joint of the robot has shape memory alloy actuators to make the robot lighter in weight; (iii) the robot has suckers at both ends of arm, so that the robot can climb up along the wall from the ground; and (iv) a robot with the inch worm mechanism has many functional motions, such that it can pass over flanges and T-joints, and transfer to adjacent pipelines with a wider range of pipe diameters. Thus, the functional level of the maintenance robot has greatly been improved by the introduction of the Mark IV robot