CCRobot-V: A Silkworm-Like Cooperative Cable-Climbing Robotic System for Cable Inspection and Maintenance
Zhenliang Zheng, Ning Ding, Huaping Chen, Xiaoli Hu, Zhihao Zhu, Xueqi Fu, Wenchao Zhang, Lin Zhang, Sarsenbek Hazken, Ziya Wang, Min Zhao
Abstract
This paper presents CCRobot-V, the fifth version of CCRobot, a cooperative serial multi-robot system for bridge cable inspection and maintenance that uses silkworm-like locomotion to climb the entire length of super-long stay cable at high speeds while carrying heavy inspection/maintenance equipment. CCRobot-V consists of one climbing precursor robot, one inspection/maintenance robot, several cable-carrying robots, and a power-tethered cable guiding system. The pre-cursor robot is the “head,” which leads the affiliated sub-robots along the bridge cable. Every sub-robot possesses a pair of self-locking palms. When a sub-robot grips on the bridge cable with its palms, it becomes a fixed anchor point that allows the adjacent sub-robots in front and back to use winches and steel wires to pull themselves upward. With this cooperative multi-robot system, cable inspection/maintenance tasks can be divided into several functional units, with each inspection/maintenance equipment installed separately on a customized sub-robot. Thus, CCRobot-V provides a complete mobile inspection/maintenance work line for a bridge cable. The experimental and field tests demonstrate CCRobot-V's high climbing speed, high payload capacity, and full-length cable moving capability. It has the potential application value for the actual bridge cable inspection/maintenance.