Category: Mountain Climbing

Abstract

India is the third largest producer of coconut in the world. Usually all over India conventional harvesting method are used. It is very difficult to climb a coconut tree manually due to structure and the contour of the tree. Generally trees have branches onto which a person can climb and extract fruits but not in the case of trees like coconut tree, areca nut, palm tree, where there are no branches for support. Due to the risks involved, nowadays farmers are hesitating to climb the coconut tree to extract coconuts. Even agricultural workers employed for coconut harvesting hesitate to do the job because they suffer from musculosketal disorders in the long term. The number of workers who can do this job is decreasing day by day. Hence there is need for a machine which can do this job in the place of humans. The robot is a tree climbing robot, design specifically to harvest coconut quickly, safely and efficiently. This robot is to be controlled remotely from the ground, and the operator can see what is happening on top of the tree on his remote display. The robotic arm with the axis of freedom is to be design in such a way that camera can be mounted on either side or top of the robot head. The aim of designing the robot is to provide an automatic machine with reliable monitoring, safety, better efficiency and reduced environmental impact which will support the coconut industry of India.

Introduction

Coconut is one of the cash crops in India. India is among the top players in production of coconut in the world. Coconut harvesting is traditionally carried out by men who belong to economically lower-class society. As the literacy rate increases, and awareness about the high paid job opportunities increases, which leads to the shortage of human coconut tree climbers. As these men usually do not have any insurance coverage, any accidents while climbing the trees would affect the entire family. In such situation there is genuine need to develop an automatic coconut tree climbing and harvesting robot to support coconut industry in India.The conventional way of harvesting is by climbing the coconut tree and cutting it.Because of the risks involved many methods have been developed. There are many methods to climb a tree, one of them is mechanical aid. Another method is to use a robot for climbing and cutting. The recent technology in the field of robotics has reached to a level where we can design variety of robotic system which can do various kinds of tasks like picking and placing, cutting, climbing, flying, etc.Our current research is to develop an autonomatic coconut tree climbing robot which is safe, efficient, easy to operate, and equipped with auto-fastening mechanism to climb a tree of varying diameter.An autonomous climbing algorithm is used to guide the robot. The design of an autonomous robot is to climb the tree in a vertically upward direction.

Problem Statement

Coconut production has a significant influence on the economy of India. But due the risk involved in climbing, there is shortage of tree climbers which is adversely affecting the economy of the country.There are many mechanical models present in the market for coconut tree climbing. These mechanical models requires human being for climbing a tree, but only trained person climb using such machines. Hence the existing techniques are not sufficient to solve the problem of unavailability of workers for coconut harvesting. Thus, there is genuine need to develop a robot with reliable monitoring, safety, greater efficiency and reduced environmental impact which will support the coconut industry of India.

Literature review

Lot of work has been done on the tree climbing robot up till now. Many types of robots had been invented. A literature study is done to understand the mechanism of various types of climbing robots. Literature work is also done on various mechanism that are used for arm and inspection of coconut.

Mani A, Jothilingam A [1] discussed about the development and fabrication of a tree climber and harvester. It consists of two mechanisms. One for climbing and another for harvesting. They designed an octagon shaped chassis where wheels at specific intervals were provided. The proposed design by Mani and Jothilingam had the location of centre of mass of the device outside the tree and it fused both spiral and straight climbs. An arm was provided in order to fulfill the harvesting requirement. The bunch of nuts is located by a camera which is fixated to the arm. The cutting is done by a saw after a clear view of the nuts is obtained. The entire mechanism was controlled by remote control. They discussed about the hardware setup and controlling units were designed.

Rajesh Kannan, Megalingam, R Venumadhav, Ashis Pavan K, Anandkumar Mahadevan, Tom Charly Kattakayam, and Harikrishna Menon T, [2] analysed various models of climbing and harvesting devices. Safety, reliability, ease of use, cleaning the tree tops, spraying pesticides were given prior importance. They designed a system that can be controlled by anyone. The designed prototype responds to human gestures with negligible gap in the response time. A prototype of the arm was designed and tested against human gestures and found successful. Their machine was designed to consume less power, so longer working hours doesn’t affect the power consumption.

Methodology

A. Transmitter Block

The user can control the robot through mobile application which is specifically designed for the system.For connection establishment the mobile WiFi gets connected to the receiver.The application is user friendly, the internal architecture required for mobile application will process the user input and its transmitted though the Wi-Fi (wirelessly) to the receiver end.

B. Receiver Block

The received signal from transmitter through the wireless device module (ESP32 Wi-Fi module) is interfaced with microcontroller.Microcontroller reads all command signals from Wi-Fi which the user sends via a mobile application. As per user’s command the microcontroller takes action to the all interfaced peripherals.

The block diagram is divided into following sections:

1. Main control unit – Every system has a main control unit to process it’s all tasks. This control unit takes input from the user. The microcontroller is the main control unit of the proposed system. It takes input from the sensors and perform various tasks depending on the input . The microcontroller controls the system according to the sensor’s signal and performs the operation.
2. Wi-Fi module – The Wi-Fi module is a wireless device which is interfaced with the microcontroller. This module is the main source of the system. It takes multiple inputs from the user and gives it to the microcontroller for processing. The wi-fi module has an onboard camera which helps to detect coconut.
3. Motor driver- To drive the motor or any load, one driver module is needed. This motor driver controls the speed of motor and drives the motor. This is two channel motor driver which can provide forward and reverse movement of the motor.
4. Sensors- The ultrasonic sensors are used, to calculate distance from the object so as to prevent any damage to the system. The ultrasonic sensor at the top will prevent the machine from moving forward in upward direction. Similarly, the sensor at the bottom will make sure that machine will not hit the ground while coming in downward direction.
5. Camera – The camera unit is used to detect the position of coconuts. It will help the operator to give proper instructions to the arm mechanism. The camera is attached at top of the ARM, where the cutter is located.
6. Battery- Battery unit is providing life to the system. It will give power to the microcontroller, Wi-Fi module, motor driver and all other peripherals of the system. The source is DC. The voltage of battery is 12Vdc.

FLOW CHART

The battery is main unit of the system. All operation depends on the battery power. Hence, battery is the main concern in the system. If the battery is charged completely, the system works according to the operation. But if the battery is drained, then the system is disturbed and does not complete it’s tasks. It is necessary to keep the battery completely charged. If it is not then the user gets alert through LED and the user can know about charging status. If the battery is charged then the system will wait for the user command. User can provide the next task to the microcontroller via the transmitter. In case system does not respond according to the user command, then the system will alert to user. The all processes worked well according to user command, the robot goes up through the motor. The robot should continue to run till ultrasonic sensor sends the signal to the microcontroller. If the distance is more than pre-determined distance from the top, the motor should continue to run in an upward direction otherwise the motor stops. Now, the user sends next command to

the system for opening arm mechanism and camera will turn ON. The camera helps user to inspect the coconut and helps the arm to move towards the coconut.Once the coconut is detected, the cutter is turned ON through the user command and the coconut branch is completely cut by cutter saw. The cutter saw is nothing but a grinder machine whose speed is high due to torque motor. The woodcutter saw clade can be attached on the motor shaft. After cutting coconut according to command, the cutter will stop and the arm goes back to the original position. The motor will turn ON and it will start moving downwards. The ultrasonic sensor again reads the distance from the ground surface and sends signal to the microcontroller. The microcontroller takes action according to the distance. Till the distance is not minimum the robot continues downward movement. The bottom sensor helps to prevent the robot from hitting the ground surface. The robot will perform all the operations according to the flowchart of the project.

SOLIDWORKS DESIGN OF PROJECT MODEL

We have designed an hexagonal shapped system in this we have used six nylon rubber gripped wheel through which the robot moves in upward and downward direction.

The model works on the following mechanisms:

1) The sliding mechanism

This mechanism works through sliding rods drilled in the frame with a helical spring. As the machine moves upward, the diameter of tree decreases, hence the slider mechanism slides inside due to the tension induced by the spring and retracts again to the main position as the robot slides towards the bottom of the tree due to increasing diameter.

2) Climbing mechanism

The robot climbs up on the tree due to the high torque motors and wheels. The wheels are designed such that it will provide maximum grip to the surface of the tree and hence it will help the robot to hold itself and climb upwards with required friction.

3) The cutter mechanism

In this mechanism the arm is attached at the top most region of the robot.The arm is rotated by using a motor and a wheel. The arm consists of two link rods, a high rpm motor and a cutter blade fixed on the shaft of the motor.

MOBILE APPLICATION

The mobile application for the Android operating system which is focused on manual control using wireless control. The controlling device may be any android based Smartphone/tab etc. having an android OS. The android controlling system provides a good interactive GUI that makes it easy for the user to control the robot. The transmitter uses an android application required for transmitting the data. The receiver end reads these commands and interprets them into controlling the robot. The android device sends commands to move the robot in upward, downward and controlling the arm in 3-axis direction. The communication between android device and receiver is sent as serial communication data. The microcontroller program is designed to move the motors through a motor driver IC, as per the commands sent by android device.

CONCLUSION

Development in recent technologies has introduced radical changes to the agriculture. The main aim is to bring more robots and artificial intelligence into agriculture. These technologies enables greater efficiencies, lower prices, increased worker safety, reduced environmental and ecological impact.Our model is to provide a viable alternative for coconut cutting and harvesting as the percentage of manual cutters is decreasing day by day. Also, it is an eco-friendly machine with better efficiency and safety.From all the research work and calculations, we can conclude that the robot will climb the tree and cut the coconut, reducing the human work unit at the same time will increase the efficiency by cutting more coconut compared to humans.We have developing a novel climbing robot which can move in forward and backward direction. Also it can remain stationary based on its own weight.

References

1. Mani A, Jothilingam A, “Design and Fabrication of Coconut Harvesting Robot: COCOBOT”, International Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, Volume 3, Special Issue 3, March 2014
2. Rajesh Kannan, Megalingam, R Venumadhav, Ashis Pavan K, Anandkumar Mahadevan, Tom Charly Kattakayam, and Harikrishna Menon T, “Kinect Based Wireless Robotic Coconut Tree Climber”, 3rd International Conference on Advancements in Electronics and Power Engineering,January 2013
3. P. Mohankumar, D. Anantha Krishnan and K. Kathirvel, “Development of ergo refined coconut tree climbing device”, African Journal of Agricultural Research, Volume 8, November 2013
4. Rahul V, Sebin Babu, Sameer Moideen CP, Vineeth VP, Nikhil Ninan, ‘Semi automated coconut tree climber’, International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology, November 2014

Abstract

The proposed system consists of a wheel chair the benefits and modification to facilitate climbing of stairs through its special designed features. The purpose of this work aims at developing an automatic Stair-Climbing Wheelchair, a mechanism for climbing upstairs and down stairs stairs for physically disabled people. A Stair-Climbing Wheelchair is a chair that moves upstairs and downstairs. It has speciality to maximize comfort, ease the usage and attractiveness in the home, which is a safe and affordable solution to conquer the challenges that disabled people experience on the stairs. A unique mechanism for climbing stairs, used here is a tri-wheel mechanism, due to its simplicity and ease of design. The tri-wheel mechanism can be easily fabricated, thereby reducing the total cost of fabrication of wheelchair. The tri-wheel mechanism for stair-climbing wheelchair makes it easy to move up and down on stairs. The smart wheelchair is designed to assist disabled and elderly people leading to a higher quality, more independent lifestyle.

Introduction

Wheelchair is a machine used by disabled and elderly people to enhance their moveableness. There are variety of wheelchairs available in the market. Some are manual while some are electrically powered wheelchair. The choice of wheelchair depends upon the physical and mental ability of the user. These typical Wheelchair has restrictions against architectural barriers on its way. Although as per PWD 1995 act it is mandatory to provide an accessible environment in every public building[1] but numerous buildings in India are designed without considering accessibility for physically challenged and wheel chair users.

There exists few models such as escalators and elevators, used to go up and down the stairs but these, are not explicitly for the physically handicapped. For an instance, a physically handicapped cannot use the escalator the only option available to him/her is the use of the elevator. There also exist scenarios where both elevators and escalators cannot be used due to limitations in architecture. The drawbacks in the existing systems are:

1. Elevators occupy more space. Therefore, implementation in places where sufficient space is not available becomes tough.
2. The existing systems consume more power for operation. Despite of using of sensors in escalators for power saving, still the power consumption is high.
3. If these are not operated properly, they can be dangerous
4. Healthy people develop the habit of depending upon elevators; therefore, the physical activity reduces.
5. In elevators, people get struck for hours between floors when the power goes out and there is no back up for the power supply.
6. It involves risk while operating these in wooden houses and buildings.

Ibot is one such technology which costs around $29000 . A manual Stair-climbing wheelchair can be a low cost solution for the user and can enhance the mobility solution to access most of the buildings. The people with physical disability not only have less living space, but also the quality of life is seriously affected and it also brings big burden to their family. it is still very difficult to overcome these obstacles, which is inconvenient for those people who use wheelchairs. So most of the time these disabled or elderly people can only stay at home, and lack of activities outside may influence on their physiology and psychology. This device can also prevent the wheelchair from overturning backward, and improve the security and comfort of the wheelchair. Locking system is added which is used to lock the wheelchair while climbing up and down stairs, making sure it can only move in one direction, and protect the wheelchair from slipping down.

Design process

Walking mechanism design

The walking mechanism is a very important part of the stair-climbing wheelchair; it directly impacts on the stability, safety and comfort of the wheelchair, so all kinds of factors must be considered to choose the walking mechanism. According to the analysis about the advantages and disadvantages between different types of climbing wheelchairs, the following concepts were observed Planetary wheel mechanism has a great advantages among the stair-climbing wheelchairs ,which not only has a simple and compact structure, flexible movement, good stability, small fluctuation range of gravity centre, but also combines the advantages of moving on the ground and climbing stairs. Therefore planetary wheel mechanism is chosen as the walking mechanism in our design.

Planetary wheel mechanism stair-climbing wheelchair

The planetary wheel mechanism is constituted by several small wheels that are equally distributed on a tie bar with shapes like “Y” or “+”. The small wheels can revolve on its axis, and it can also make a revolution around the central shaft. Every small wheel revolves on its own axis, when the wheelchair moves on the ground; and every small wheel revolves round the central axis, when the wheelchair goes up or down stairs. The wheelchair moves by means of a Geared Dc motor. Moreover, to help a paralyzed person to move freely was not only our main concern but also help him to climb stairs is our main motive. Here, planetary wheels refers to tri wheel mechanism. Ordinary planetary wheel structure is when the central shaft drives the central gear; the central gear will drive the planetary gear and the planetary wheels to make the wheelchair go forward. When the wheelchair climbs stairs, the planet wheel is locked by the resistance; the whole planetary structure is derived by the central shaft rolling and completes the process of climbing. In this case, planetary gears will bear great torque and impact and will break easily.

Proposed Mechanism

The proposed mechanism’s operation in barrier free environments, that is relatively flat areas, is based on the use of 2 wheels much the same as a standard powered wheelchair. The front wheels are independently powered and the rear wheels are free-wheeling casters. By independently controlling the front wheels steering is achieved .The wheels used in barrier free mode are 2 wheels of a 3 wheel cluster. By rotating the wheel cluster stairs can be negotiated regarding cluster based operation. . For providing heating and cooling therapy, Peltier element is used. This device has two sides, and when a DC electric current flows through the device, it brings heat from one side to the other, so that one side gets cooler while the other side gets cooler while the other gets hotter.

Methodology

The methodology section outline the plan and method that how the study is conducted. There are two main parts in this chapter which are basic stair-climbing wheelchair design and optimization design. And the design framework is given below :

Planetary wheels system optimization

Ordinary planetary wheel structure is when the central shaft drives the central gear; the central gear will drive the planetary gear and the planetary wheels to make the wheelchair go forward. When the wheelchair climbs stairs, the planet wheel is locked by the resistance; the whole planetary structure is derived by the central shaft rolling and completes the process of climbing. In this case, planetary gears will bear great torque and impact and will break easily. One idea is got from the car clutch, which is used to control the engine and the wheels transmission separation and combination. Depress the clutch,driving device of the engine is disconnected from the wheels, the power of the engine cannot pass to the wheels; release the clutch, the engine driving device is connected with the wheels, the power of the engine can then pass to the wheels.

Seat backrest System

Most wheelchairs are oblique during the process of climbing up and down stairs, the user will feel uncomfortable, it can easily turnover, which poses a big safety risk. In order to overcome this problem, a seat backrest adjusting device is designed for our wheelchair, so before the wheelchair climbs up and down stairs, this device will adjust an angle for the seat and backrest to make sure the seat of the wheelchair keeps level with the ground all the time.

It consists of a round handle (5), helical gear shaft (4), helical gear shaft (8) and the worm and gear mechanism (7), (10). The working principle for the seat and backrest system is: the user through the handle controls the helical gear shaft rotation, helical gear shaft will transfer torque to helical gear and drives the worm rotation, finally the worm transfer torque to the main shaft, and makes the seat backrest system adjust to any angle.

Locking system design

When the stair-climbing wheelchair climbs stairs, there is danger of falling down the stairs, in order to protect the user and avoid this kind of situation to happen we installed a ratchet mechanism locking system on the central axis. When the wheelchair goes up and down stairs, people can screw the handle to lock the wheelchair and thus prevent the wheelchair from slipping down stairs.

Storage battery selection

The batteries can be roughly divided into physical and chemical batteries. Moreover, batteries of a chemical type which can be repeatedly charged are called rechargeable batteries. There are various types of rechargeable batteries: lead-acid battery used for automobiles, nickel cadmium rechargeable battery called a small rechargeable battery, nickel metal hydride battery, lithium ion rechargeable battery, etc. lead acid battery has been chosen because of the following reasons:

• Lead-acid battery has the advantage of long service life, low price, and can store a large current discharge.
• It has a small volume and light weight.
• The selected motor needs 24V storage battery.

Tri wheel

The tri-star is a novel wheel design originally by Lockheedin 1967[9] in which three wheels are arranged in an upright triangle with two on the ground and one above them, as shown in Figure 1. If either of the wheels in contact with the ground gets stuck, the whole system rotates over the obstruction[10]. A Tri-Star wheel consists of a three spoked wheel and three leaf wheels. The three leaf wheels attached on the end of each of the spoke wheels. All these wheels are powered, which imply that, at rest, each Tri-Star wheel will have exactly two leaf wheels in contact with the ground surface. On the flat surface, the leaf wheels will simply turn giving a smooth and relatively efficient grip.

[Tri wheel working mechanism

The tri-wheel function will be same as l the lever it climbs stairs due to the rolling action of wheels.

This wheel design is very simple, it consists of three wheels, each wheel in mount shafts are mounted the almost like vertices of the fashion. These set of wheels can handle problems related to different types of surfaces like surface with sand and mud. It allows traveling over obstructions like rocks, holes, in rolling action and the third wheel remains idle. When an obstruction occurs, the lower front wheel will stop moving forward, but the driving axle remains in motion and the top wheel will now come into action as a wheel usually lands on top of obstruction and rest of assembly will move over the obstacle. The same process repeats until the required destination is reached.

CONCLUSION

In our work, we designed a novel stair-climbing wheelchair, that can help to overcome problems related to uneven or inclined terrain, stairs and obstacles. All parts of the wheelchair are designed in Autocad. There is no any system which makes physical disabled people fully independent. Various control system could be used to control and cope with different typee of physical disabilities. This paper serves a summary of current state-of-the-art smart wheelchairs. Various technologies are available which are used to operate and control the wheel mechanism of wheelchair. This information is gathered to publicize status of existing types of smart powered wheelchair so that the improvement can be incorporated into it.

References

1. PWD “The Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995,” India: Implemented in the State of Punjab in February 1996.
2. N.N. Sorate et al., “Stair Climbing Wheelchair for Disabled Person”, International Journal of Mechanical and Industrial Technology ISSN 2348-7593 (Online) Volume 03, Issue 02,. March 2016.
3. Prof. Girish Sudhir Modak and Prof. Dr. Manmohan M. Bhoomkar, “Innovative design of staircase climbing wheelchair”, International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT), vol. 2 issue 2, February 2013
4. R Rajasekar, “Design and fabrication of staircase climbing wheelchair”, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research (IJMERR), vol. 2, no. 2, April 2013.
5. Murray J. Lawn and Takakazu Ishimatsu, “Modeling of a stair climbing wheelchair mechanism with high single-step capability”, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, vol. 11, no. 3, September 2003.
6. Giuseppe Quaglia⁎, Walter Franco, Riccardo Oderio., 2011. Wheelchair.q, A Motorized Wheelchair with Stair Climbing Ability 46 (1) 1602-1605
7. Morales R, Feliu, Gonzalez A, Coordinated Motion of a new staircase climbing wheelchair with increased passenger comfort, International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Automotion,(2006) pp. 11-24
8. Mourikis, A.I., Trawny, N., Roumeliotis, S.I., Helmick, D.M., and Matthies, L., ―Autonomous Stair Climbing for Tracked Vehicles,‖ International Journal of Computer Vision & International Journal of Robotics Research – Joint Special Issue on Vision and Robotics, 26(7), pp 737-758.,2007.
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-star_(wheel_arrangement)#cite_note-US3348518-1
10. US patent 3348518A, Forsyth, Robert W & Forsyth, John P, ‘Amphibious star-wheeled vehicle’, issued 1967-10-24, assigned to Lockheed Corp
11. Pothamsetty Kasi V Rao, “Design of stair-climbing wheelchair using tri-wheel mechanism” International Journal of Mechanical and Production Engineering Research and Development (IJMPERD) ISSN (P): 2249-6890; ISSN (E): 2249-8001 Vol. 8, Issue 4, Aug 2018, 717-726

Abstract

This paper presents a vertical surface climbing robot for cleaning of dust from high rise building. Usually, people clean their wall of outer surface of building by human. Often it becomes risky and costly also. A portable robot having the ability to climb on vertical surface has been expected for a long time. To protect human’s life we designed a prototype of vertical surface climbing robot for cleaning and other multipurpose operation. Some combination of technology has been shown such as smart wireless control with all direction moving capability. Four Dc motors are used to move the robot and one Dc motor is used to rotate the cleaning brush. There is one Electric Ducted fan (EDF) which helps the robot to stick to the surface against gravitational force. An Arduino uno is used as a controller for different There is a Bluetooth modular which has been used to connect with smart phone and take command from user. Four motor helps it to move in up, down, right and left direction by the according commands given by smart phone. The full robot is power by using DC battery and AC to DC converted adapter combined. To observe the outcome of the project, we analyzed the performance of the robot by climbing in different surfaces with different nature. The climbing and stick to the surface differ because of grip. Griping is an important issue for this robot. Most of the surface except glass its performance satisfied us.

Introduction

Nowadays, constructional developments are increasing as a result high rise buildings are increasing day by day. Moreover, our world’s environments has become so polluted with the industrial development. This causes too much dust to the outer surface of building. That is why it is needed to clean the building from outside to keep it clean and beautiful. Sometimes, it is also necessary to make color or to keep surveillance of the surface of building. All these needs make people bound to climb the outer surface of building by taking life risk. It may causes lots of accident which creates lots of fatal condition of patients. In last 15 years, accident of window cleaners were observed by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) which states that 62 cases resulted in fatalities out of 88 window washing accidents [1]. It means 59% of accidents creates fatalities which is remarkable [2].

Vertical surface climbing cleaner robot is such kind of robot which can climb above the vertical surface with the help of different electrical equipment. After many of modifications, this robot can serve many of purpose like cleaning, coloring, surveillance, monitoring etc. The number of high rise buildings are increasing rapidly which contains mega shopping malls, hospitals, hotels, educational institutions, residential building etc. As it is necessary to keep beautiful and attractive those buildings from the outside, it becomes mandatory to clean the outer surface of building. Vertical surface climbing robot can climb over the outer surface of building and it can clean the surface with the help of moving brush which is operated by DC motor.

Vertical surface climbing cleaner robot can play a remarkable role both socially and economically. As it is visible that there were a large number of accidents occurred, this vertical surface climbing cleaner robot can reduce the number of accident near to zero. Moreover, the cost of cleaning is expensive due to the number of workers. This kind of climbing robot can deduct the cleaning and coloring cost of building. Sometimes, it is difficult to complete the cleaning task within the given time duration due to many problems like rain, thunderstorm etc. For getting the balance against the gravitational force, the robot will have EDF which will create a high amount of rotational energy so that the whole robot will be capable to get stability. The rotating brush can rotate with its 360 degree angle which makes the robot easy to clean.

The development of vertical surface climbing cleaner robot is expected for a long time. This kind of robot can be used as rescue or inspection and others operations with its modification and developments. Initially, we have to choose the way how we implement the system and what types of components we are going to use. Before starting the implementation, there are two objectives for the final representation of the robot. Firstly, to make such a device this can move in vertical direction on wall. Secondly, to provide a cleaning mechanism with the robot so that it can clean the surface. For the implementation of Wall climbing cleaner robot needs three steps like mechanical modeling, electrical design and different types of coding. The very first challenge is how to stick the whole robot with the surface. Electrical Ducted Fan (EDF) is a wonderful and smart solution for the suction of air from surface. EDF is made of brushless motor with bladed fan. This is a 70mm 12-bladed ducted fan. The EDF is made with a 2300KV-6S brushless motor [3]. This EDF has high torque due to its brushless motor. In this manner it can overcome the gravitational force.

A servo tester has been also used to run the EDF. It has been connected with ESC. It has three mode for run manual, neutral and automatic [4]. Here it has been used in automatic mode to control the speed of EDF. This is a 3 channel ESC servo tester [5].

METHODOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE SYSTEM

The block diagram is divided in two parts as its main duty is in two portions. Microcontroller, ducted fan, dc motors, motor drivers are operated for moving towards vertical direction. Cleaning mechanism is operated to clean the surface or color the wall. For operating two pairs of dc motor, there are two motor driver which is enough for all the dc motors. As a power supply a 12 volt DC battery is used which can supply a continuous electricity. This power supplied can be supplied by 220 volt line voltage by an Ac to DC converter. As it is a prototype of robot, a DC battery is used here for power supply.

EDF is connected with the ESC for controlling the speed of motor. Mainly this ESC controls the speed of motors. Two L298 motor drivers are used for operating DC motors. Each motor driver operates two individual motors. As a controller Arduino Uno is used for multiples operation like operating motor driver, modular etc. Besides all these, we have also used a servo tester for running EDF. Throughout the whole hardware implementation, EDF plays a key role. As it is early mentioned that EDF is made of brushless motor with bladed fan, that’s why an ESC is used for regulation purposes.

Before moving towards the physical implementation, robot’s movement is observed by the software simulation.The simulation is done by proteus 8 professional. It is visible that an Arduino uno is used as controller and two motor drivers are connected with that controller. Each motor driver is connected with two DC motors. A Bluetooth modular is also connected with the Arduino. This Bluetooth modular is used for operating this robot without any kinds of wired medium. An application of play store named as Bluetooth RC controller is used for operating this robot. By this application, the robot can be operated in XY plane. Firstly, the controller is powered on by the source and then it starts to operate. The connecting motor drivers get command from the controller Arduino Uno. When the motor drivers get command from the controller, those motor drivers start to operate the two DC motors individually. As the DC motors are started to run, the whole robot will move towards vertically.

The EDF is as heavy in weight as the center of gravity worked properly due to its middle position. Generally, EDF is used for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) purposes while EDF provides a high amount of rotating energy [6]. Due to its high speed it can deduce the air of the surface where it stands as a result it is possible to get the stability against the gravitational force.

From the internal structure of EDF it is visible that Hacker A200 is the central axis if EDF which hold the eight blades fan rotor [6].

As it is a prototype of vertical surface climbing cleaner robot, the whole structure is designed upon a hardboard. Each DC motors are connected with wheel which help the robot to move forward.

RESULT ANALYSIS

Vertical surface climbing cleaner robot will climb above the wall and clean the surface with the help of moving brush. The initial challenge is overcome by electrical ducted fan and it can move through vertical direction with the help of DC motors. It is shown that the robot is climbing and its moving brush is cleaning the surface.

According to a comparison of a ten storied buildings cleaning cost by labor and robot, it is noticeable that robot is much efficient than labors. It is easily noticeable that for the cost of workers is 150$-210$ approximately where the two robots cost will be around 400$ [6]. It represents that the cost of cleaning robot is twice than labors. But the mentionable thing is these robots can be utilized multiple times without any costing except the power supply. On the other hand, for the cleaning purpose 150$ will be required for every cleaning time. This comparison shows that vertical surface climbing cleaner robot would be economically efficient and ethically helpful for human being.

CONCLUSION

The main purpose of this project is to reduce the life risk of workers from high rise building. We have implemented a small proto type of vertical surface climbing cleaner robot which can go through any wall and clean its surface. An EDF is used for the suction of air to stick it on the wall. For cleaning, a brush is added at the center of the robot so that it can clean its surface. To maintain the sustainability, we need to take care of the cost of our projects so that government grants it for the implementation in countrywide. If we would get the finding and facilities, we can upgrade it as multipurpose tasks like coloring, inspection, rescue etc. We faced some difficulties, while we selected our motors. Initially, we selected the motor with high rpm but those were heavy in weight. After that, we overcome our difficulties by shifting to light weight low rpm motors. While, we supply voltage with DC battery (24 V), it becomes heavier than normal condition. That’s why it cannot carry more than 2.2 kg weight. Moreover, it can’t clean smartly like with soda and water. Only normal cleaning is possible by this. According to our limitations, we can overcome this by some up gradations. We can add one more EDF for more proper suction of air. In that time the robot’s carrying ability will increase from 2.2 kg to 4.8 kg. This project structure can be printed on PCB layout as a result it may reduce the number of wires required. Thus, making the project more reliable and effective.

The project represents the formation of vertical surface climbing robot and its cleaning mechanism on wall. We used Proteus 8 professional software to design simulation. For the suction of air, EDF is used which can suck the air and stick it to the wall. Microcontroller has been used as the main control part. The desired implementation of hardware was performed with the help of EDF, ESC, servo master and modular. Since EDF start to operate, robot can overcome the gravitational force and four dc motors help it to move the vertical direction. Within the mechanical area of our robust platform, it is developed to climb on relatively smooth surfaces and non-porous surface.

References

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