The climbing performance analysis of a robot for power line inspection with retractable double serial manipulators

Abstract

A power line inspection robot has to overcome many kinds of obstacles in inspection processes. The strain clamp is the obstacles difficult for inspection robots to overcome. The inspection robot needs to have a particular climbing ability to overcome the strain clamp. Therefore, the ability to climb power lines is the key point of the inspection robot’s design. An inspection robot with retractable double serial manipulators is proposed to improve the climbing and obstacle-crossing ability. Besides, this paper shows that the inspection robot is more suitable for climbing from static analysis and dynamic evaluation index. Firstly, the obstacle-crossing processes and structures of the inspection robot are introduced. Next, the static analysis is carried out when inspection robot climbs the power lines. The static analysis shows that the new inspection robot has a smaller driving torque. What’s more, the dynamic model of the inspection robot is established by Lagrange’s dynamical equations. By constructing the dynamic evaluation indexes, the inspection robot with retractable arms performs better dynamic characteristics. Finally, a prototype robot is carried out to cross obstacles and climb up power lines. The results show that the inspection robot can overcome different obstacles and has a good climbing performance.