Distributed control of hexapod wall climbing robot implementing Controller Area Network (CAN)

  • Authors:

  • Nkgatho Sylvester Tale;Glen Bright;W. L. Xu

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa.;Institute of Engineering and Technology, College of Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.;Institute of Engineering and Technology, College of Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

Service robots have been used in tasks that require navigation of horizontal or near horizontal surfaces. Some applications require service robots that are capable of moving along a vertical plane e.g., wall painting, window washing, non-destructive testing (NDT), surveillance, etc. The controller of a wall climbing robot that has many actuators and many sensors is difficult to design because of safety issues. If a central controller is used, a failure in one part of the system can result in a failure of the complete system. This can result in the robot's safety mechanisms failing and the robot falling from the wall. This paper describes the design of a wall climbing robot that implements many actuators and sensors; the hexapod wall climbing robot. Controller Area Network (CAN) is implemented as a distributed controller of such a robot. The distributed controller is described in detail and its performance analysed.