SKM 2023 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 48: Magnetic Instrumentation and Characterization

MA 48.8: Vortrag

Freitag, 31. März 2023, 11:30–11:45, HSZ 401

Improving the magnetic adhesion of a metal-pipe crawling robot using elastomeric toes — •Muhammad Khan, Kilian Schäfer, and Oliver Gutfleisch — Functional Materials, Institute of Materials Science, Technical University Darmstadt, D-64287 Darmstadt, Germany

To assist human inspectors who examine thousands of kilometres spread oil and gas pipelines, robots are being utilized. A key challenge in robotic pipeline inspection is to ensure that a robot does not fall off a metal pipe. In this work, we show that a two-legged robot crawls on metal pipes using its electromagnetic feet. The robot slip was fixed by introducing an elastomeric toe, implanted under the robot feet. It was shown that the soft toe increased the magnetic adhesion of the feet by enabling the stable stance of the robot feet. The behaviour of the foot-toe was further characterized by conducting surface adaptability test (measurement of toe deformation), calculating its coefficient of friction on different metal pipes, and real-world robot pipe-crawling experiments. Furthermore, use of a magneto-active compound consisting of hard magnetic Nd2Fe14B particles in a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) matrix, fabricated to form the fin-ray structure will be also discussed as a potential replacement of the electromagnet. However, such a fin-ray structure would require a large and continuously available activation field which is obviously highly challenging. Here, a concept demonstration at the miniature level can be shown by modifying the robot's shape and size, matching the miniature setup.