Facade cleaning robot with manipulating and sensing devices equipped on a gondola

Abstract

Faade cleaning of high-rise buildings requires automation due to the risk and inefficiency of a fall accident for human workers. Recently, due to the need for automation, various types of facade cleaning robots have been developed. In our previous study, the gondola-mounted type cleaning robot was developed, and it showed several issues. In this paper, we propose an improved design features to solve the issues. First, modularized design for lightweight and maintainability. Second, passive obstacle overcoming with tri-star wheel and compliant manipulator for minimizing uncleaned area near obstacles. Third, the position sensing device for lateral disturbance compensation occurred by swinging gondola. To verify the cleaning performance of the robot, experiments were conducted with different scenarios of cleaning general plane surface, obstacle overcoming, lateral disturbance applied and compensated. Experimental results of both lab-test and field-test performed on a real-world building were analyzed and summarized in this paper. IEEE