An industrial walking machine for naval construction

Legged locomotion has been extensively investigated in the last two decades, during which time many walking machines have been built as test-beds for research purposes. Legged locomotion technology now seems to be ready to take on industrial applications. This paper presents a legged machine-ROWER-for a real industrial application in naval construction processes. The main task of the walking machine is to provide full motion to a welding manipulator in a very complex scenario, the double hull of a ship. This scenario consists of cells fitted with stiffeners on the top, bottom, and lateral walls to reinforce the ship's structure. The legged machine moves through the cell grasping the top and bottom reinforcements rather than walking on the bottom plane. This improves the machine's stiffness and guarantees its stability. This paper describes the walking machine's main structure, the leg structure, and grasping mechanism. It then defines and simulates the gait for walking while grasping the stiffeners. Finally, it reports the features of a full-size leg.