Development of a wall-climbing platform with modularized wall-cleaning units

This paper presents a wall-climbing platform equipped with new modularized wall-cleaning units. Instead of using such devices as winch systems or built-in guide rails, the proposed platform adopts a portable rope ascender for efficient wall-climbing. In order to keep in good contact with various types of walls, two propeller thrusters are optimally designed by the Taguchi method to ensure absorptive force of larger than 45 N per a propeller thruster. The compactness and lightness of proposed platform is successfully achieved so that its overall size, weight and load capacity are 1300 mm × 787 mm × 606 mm (length × width × height), 37 kg and 18 kg, respectively. Two types of modularized cleaning units are built by using the ball-screw mechanism to adjust the distance as well as the contact angle between the cleaning units and a wall. The dry type wall-cleaning unit is designed and its operating conditions are examined by the Taguchi method to remove more than 88.9% of contaminants on a glass. The semi-dry type wall-cleaning unit is constructed based upon the dry type wall cleaning unit to effectively remove solidified contaminants by rubbing the diatomite against the wall. The extensive experiments using the proposed wall-climbing platform equipped with the wall-cleaning units are carried out to demonstrate its stable climbing capability as well as excellent cleaning performance.