Lateral Disturbance Compensation of a Gondola-Embedded Facade Cleaning Robot via Compliant Planar Arm Structure

Facade cleaning is a dangerous task for human workers. If a facade cleaning robot is equipped with a gondola, it can perform facade cleaning with a simple planar manipulator via the vertical movement of the gondola. To clean a facade using a gondola-embedded robot successfully, the disturbance in the lateral direction of the gondola movement should be measured and compensated. In this study, we propose a compliant parallel structurebased position sensing device to measure the lateral directional disturbances. The compliant structure keeps contacts on the edge of the glass frame during the operation of the gondola and obtains disturbance information from forward kinematics of the joint mechanism. The prototype was produced, and experiments were performed on a test bench designed with a similar facade geometry as that of the target building. The disturbance compensation feature of the proposed mechanism was verified by experimental analysis.

Automated summary

A compliant parallel structure-based position sensing device is proposed in the study to measure and compensate for lateral disturbances in the movement of a facade cleaning robot equipped with a gondola. Experimental analysis has verified the effective disturbance compensation feature of the proposed mechanism.