Wall-Sticking Drone for Non-Destructive Inspection of Oblique Planes

This paper discusses the preliminary design and analysis of a light-duty unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for remote inspection operations. Due to limitations in payload capacity and energy supply, small drones are often employed in distant visual inspection tasks. We propose a novel UAV landing gear system for non-destructive testing operations on carbon steel spherical storage tanks. The landing gear system employs a servo motor as the power source. It utilizes a combination of slider crank and gear mechanisms for controlling the orientation of the magnetic grippers, enabling adhesion in conjunction with UAV flight. Additionally, the system incorporates a cost-effective and lightweight switchable magnetic adhesion method based on neodymium magnets and silicon steel sheets to reduce weight, which can provide 37.72N per unit. The system’s total weight is approximately 1.6kg, with a payload capacity of 400g. The proposed prototype design has sufficient payload capacity to carry standard non-destructive testing probes, such as ultrasonic and electromagnetic, supported by empirical evidence obtained through our in-house experiments.