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SALT LAKE CITY -- In the future, robots could be used to inspect bridges, tall buildings and dams. After a year in the lab, a prototype was recently built by students at the University of Utah's Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Any big-box store, like Target or Walmart, can show you the popular toys of today. To see the toys of tomorrow though, you'll have to head over to the University of Utah's Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Recently, a team of engineers finally figured out how to make one of their robots climb up a wall.
"It was pretty exciting," says William Provancher, an assistant professor with the department. "There was a big ‘huzzah' in the lab."
I think autonomous climbing robots definitely have a future for inspection tasks, surveillance, possibly even military applications.
–Mark Fehlberg
The robot is called ROCR (pronounced "rocker"), as in "oscillating climbing robot." Students have been working on the backpack-sized machine for about a year.
"It takes a little bit of reasoning and a good thought process beforehand, and to be honest, a little bit of luck is involved," says Mark Fehlberg, a mechanical engineering student working on his Ph.D.
ROCR has two hooks which enable it to climb a carpet-padded wall. Future prototypes could be configured with other ways to attach to other surfaces.
"Climbing is a very difficult thing and the first thing you have to address is how to actually attach it to the wall," says Provancher.
The design resembles a lobster, with a long tail that sways back and forth like the pendulum on a grandfather clock. Attached to the end of the tail is a series of four 9-volt batteries, which power the robot.
One of the first obstacles the team had to overcome was to keep the robot close to the wall. Sometimes, even with hooks, the robot would pitch back and fall off.
"We just bent the aluminum sled back a little," says Fehlberg, "and that helped keep the body forward and to the wall. So all of a sudden, it went from making maybe a couple of steps and then falling back to shooting up the wall."
Practical applications of the robot in the real world include the inspection of tall buildings, bridges and dams.
"They'd be going and looking for things like failures in the concrete on the outside of a dam or building," says Provancher.
Thermal sensors and cameras could be hooked up to the robot to give operators a live look at whatever is being inspected.
"I think autonomous climbing robots definitely have a future for inspection tasks, surveillance, possibly even military applications," says Fehlberg.
Before all that, though, it has to pass tests in the lab. That's exactly what this team is doing now.
"It was pretty exciting for the first few climbs like that," says Fehlberg.
Engineers say it could still be years before an actual prototype is built to climb dams and buildings.
E-mail: acabrero@ksl.com
