Design and Implementation of CCRobot-II: a Palm-based Cable Climbing Robot for Cable-stayed Bridge Inspection

This project aims at developing a bio-inspired climbing robotic technology for cable inspection on the cable-stayed bridge. The design and implementation of a palm-based cable climbing robot: CCRobot-II with mass 25 kg, maximal payload 30kg and maximal length 1.1 m are described. CCRobot-II consists of several novel design features, including the palm-based gripping module, the alternating-sliding frame specialized for high-speed climbing, and the following wheels. With its carefully designed mechanism, climbing gait and trajectory algorithm, CCRobot-II is able to crawl along a bridge cable with a maximal speed 5.2 m/min. This speed has been hardly achieved by a existing climbing robot with such a large scale, and it is nearly the twice as the climbing speed of CCRobot-I which is designed previously. CCRobot-II also works effectively even if the bridge cable surface is attached with small obstacles. Experiments have been conducted, the results show that CCRobot-II has potential engineering applications on the cable-stayed bridge for fieldwork.