The paper studied the climbing structure and magnet selection method of exploration platform utilized for large-scale steel structures such as vessel surface. With respect to wall climbing robots, the study proposed a stable operation structure even in rapid incline change of vessel surface. Since the wheel-based operating method is hard to work flexibly in inclination changes, we employed joints and designed the robot to have a rotation joint in the center. The arrangement of wheels is an important aspect of this structure. Viewed from the side, the robot wheels should overlap with each other to have intersection points. The wheels here are ring-type permanent magnets and serve as a tool of attachment on walls. Based on the conditions identified through formula modeling, we proposed the required magnetic force. Important factors needed for magnetic force setup include platform weight, angle between ground and inclined plane, and friction coefficient. We considered only the required magnetic force for the stable adhesion of circular magnet while making not a separate mention about the necessary force for directional locomotion. The analysis results of ANSYS Maxwell are applied to magnetic attachment. Based on the final analysis results, we built a platform and found it did not slip and stayed attached on steel plate.

The camera embedded wall climbing robot in this paper combines the suction and aerodynamic attraction to achieve good balance between strong adhesion force and high mobility and adopts embedded image processing technique to detect targets on the warehouse inspection. Experimental results showed that the robot can move upward on the wall at the speed of 2.9m/min and carry 5kg payload in addition to 2.5kg self-weight, which record the highest payload capacity among climbing robots of similar size. With two 11.1V lithium-polymer battery, the robot can operate continuously for half hours. A wireless camera system, zigbee protocol module and several sensors was adopted for detecting target objects and dangerous situation on the wall and for sending alarm signals to remote sensor node or manager.

In this paper, a wall climbing robot, called LAVAR, is developed, which is using an impeller for adhering. The adhesion mechanism of the robot consists of an impeller and two-layered suction seals which provide sufficient adhesion force for the robot body on the non smooth vertical wall and horizontal ceiling. The robot uses two driving-wheels and one ball-caster to maneuver the wall surface. A suspension mechanism is also used to overcome the obstacles on the wall surface. For its design, the whole adhering mechanism is analyzed and the control system is built up based on this analysis. The performances of the robot are experimentally verified on the vertical and horizontal flat surfaces.