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

Authors: Nkgatho Sylvester Tlale, Glen Bright, W.L. Xu

Addresses: 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

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.

Keywords: mechatronics; service robots; wall climbing robots; distributed control; hexapod robots; CAN; controller area networks; robot safety; robot design; robot actuators; robot sensors; biomechatronics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISTA.2005.007330

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, 2005 Vol.1 No.1/2, pp.66 - 78

Published online: 05 Jul 2005 *

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