Mechanism Design and Control of Bio-inspired Inspection Robots

在过去的十年里，工业界对机器人在机械结构检测中的应用需求不断增长。然而，一些复杂机械结构的小而封闭的区域为使用工业机器人进行可靠性，效率和机动性的检测带来了挑战。仿生机器人通过模仿动物的行为来维持系统的动态平衡，为解决上述问题提供了一种新的途径，成为近年来的研究热点。这项研究计划旨在解决目前使用机器人进行检查的障碍：机动性差，效率低和工作区域有限。一个典型的例子是水下海洋结构或机身结构的检查与有限的区域。由于结构的复杂性和障碍物和孔洞的限制，结构检测仍然高度依赖于人工操作。该研究计划提出了一种多足仿生机器人的设计，用于检查具有有限区域和数据收集的复杂机械结构。检测机器人预计将深入到被检测的结构中，具有高机动性和避障能力。研究内容包括机构设计、传感系统和控制方法。创新的传动系统基于我们之前在麦吉尔大学智能机器中心为移动的机器人设计的传动系统，建议实现机器人每条腿三个的移动性。通过这样做，所提出的检查机器人将具有显着的优势，目前市场上的多足机器人在提高机动性，以进行运动在崎岖的地形和避免障碍物。微尺度传感系统采用最先进的MEMS加工技术，能够准确地测量机器人在三维运动中的位姿、扭点速度和角速度。本研究亦将提出发展一种以类神经网路与基因演算法为基础之智慧控制方法。拟议的机器人设计将与水下航行器集成，以实现海洋工程目的的完全自主的数据收集。通过与不同研究小组的密切合作，拟议研究的理论发展预计将服务于广泛的科学和工业部门，包括水下导航和数据收集，石油管道检查和机身结构检查。预计拟议的研究计划将产生富有成效的出版物，具有重大影响，并培训3名博士和2名硕士生作为该计划的一部分。

The past decade has witnessed the increasing demands from industry for using robots in the inspection of mechanical structures. However, small, confined areas of some complex mechanical structures brings challenges for using industrial robots to perform inspections considering reliability, efficiency and manoeuvrability. Bio-inspired robots, mimicking the behaviors of some animals to maintain a dynamically balanced system, provide solutions to some of these issues, thus, becoming a research trend recently. This research proposal is targeting to address the current hurdles of using robots for inspection: poor manoeuvrability, low efficiency and limited working areas. A typical example is the inspection of underwater marine structures or airframe structures with confined areas. Due to the limited access and complexity of structures with obstacles and holes, the structure inspection is still highly dependent on human operators nowadays. This research program proposes the design of a multilegged bio-inspired robot for the purpose of inspection of complex mechanical structures with confined areas and data collection. The inspection robot is expected to move deeply into the structure under inspection with high manoeuvrability and obstacle avoidance capability. The proposed research is composed of mechanism design, sensing system and control methodology. Innovative transmission system, based on our previous transmission system design for mobile robots at the Centre for Intelligent Machines at McGill University, is proposed to realize mobility of three for each leg of the robot. By doing this, the proposed inspection robot would have significant advantages over the current multilegged robots on the market in improving manoeuvrability to carry out locomotion over rough terrain and avoid obstacles. The micro-scale sensing system, using the state-of-the-art MEMS fabrication technology, is expected to yield the accurate information of pose-position and orientation-and its twist-point velocity and angular velocity of robot undergoing 3D motions. This research will also propose developing an intelligent control methodology based on neural networks and genetic algorithms. The proposed robot design will be integrated with underwater vehicles, to realize fully autonomous data collection for ocean engineering purposes. Through close collaboration with diverse research groups, the theoretical developments of the proposed research are expected to serve a wide range of scientific and industrial sectors, including underwater navigation and data collection, oil pipeline inspection and airframe structure inspection. It is expected that the proposed research program will result in fruitful publications with significant impact and training 3 PhD and 2 Master's students as part of this program.