Realization of a Service Climbing Robot for Glass-wall Cleaning

Wall cleaning and maintenance of high-rise buildings is becoming one of the most appropriate fields for robotization due to its current low level of automation and lack of uniform building structure. The last decade has seen an increasing interest in developing and employing service robots for cleaning glass walls which is always very dangerous and strenuous in mid-air. In this paper we propose a new kind of cleaning robot named sky cleaner which is totally actuated by pneumatic cylinders and sucked to the glass wall with vacuum suckers. The constraints for designing are discussed. After that, the drive method, principle of attachment, mechanical construction and unique aspects are presented in detail. A testing simulation shows that the robot can cross an obstacle safely and reliably when it moves from one column glass to another in the right-left direction. In the end a summary of the main special features of the cleaning robot are given.