Application of a service climbing robot with motion planning and visual sensing

This paper describes an application of a service climbing robot aimed to clean the glass wall of high-rise buildings. The robot utilizes suction cups to adhere to the glass and moves with a translational mechanism to follow a predetermined path in cleaning the whole glass surface. By a flexible waist, the robot can adjust its posture. The robot has the ability to cross the window frame to clean different sections of the glass wall. A visual sensing system, composed of an omnidirectional CCD camera and two laser diodes, enables the robot to measure its orientation and the distance between the robot and the window frame. The real-time applications and some experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed system.