An inspection robot for feeder cables-Basic structure and control

The authors describe a basic synthesis concept for an inspection robot for feeder cables (electric power cables for railways). Since the feeder cables are extremely long and have many irregular points, i.e., feeder branches, insulators and so on, robots running on these cables should have elaborate structures. A multicar structure with joint connections and biological control architecture was adopted; thus, the robot can run on the cable smoothly with enough speed and avoid the irregular points. It has a fail-safe structure as a result of autonomous distributed control. The mechanical structure of the robot and the control strategy for avoiding the irregular points are discussed