Mechanism Design and Control of Bio-inspired Inspection Robots

在过去的十年里，工业对使用机器人进行机械结构检测的需求越来越大。然而，一些复杂机械结构的狭小受限区域给使用工业机器人进行检测带来了挑战，考虑到可靠性、效率和机动性。仿生机器人模仿一些动物的行为来维持系统的动态平衡，为其中的一些问题提供了解决方案，因此成为最近的研究趋势。本研究提案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。一个典型的例子是检查具有受限区域的水下海洋结构或机身结构。由于具有障碍物和孔洞的结构物进入的局限性和复杂性，结构物的检测仍然高度依赖于人工操作。本研究项目提出了一种多腿仿生机器人的设计方案，用于对具有受限区域的复杂机械结构进行检测和数据采集。预计巡检机器人将深入被巡视结构，具有高度的机动性和避障能力。研究内容包括机构设计、传感系统和控制方法三个部分。创新的传动系统是基于我们之前在麦吉尔大学智能机器中心为移动机器人设计的传动系统，旨在实现机器人每条腿三个人的移动。通过这样做，拟议的检查机器人在提高机动性方面将比目前市场上的多腿机器人具有显著优势，可以在崎岖的地形上进行移动并避开障碍物。微尺度传感系统采用最先进的MEMS制造技术，有望获得机器人在进行三维运动时的准确位姿信息及其扭点速度和角速度。本研究还将提出开发一种基于神经网络和遗传算法的智能控制方法。拟议的机器人设计将与水下机器人集成，以实现用于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、输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，产生重大影响，并作为该计划的一部分培训3名博士和2名硕士学生。

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 poseposition and orientationand its twistpoint 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.