Design and Control of a Wall Cleaning Robot with AdhesionAwareness Wall cleaning robots are developed to cater to the demands of the building maintenance sector. The ability to climb vertical surfaces is one of the crucial requirements of a wall cleaning robot. Robots that can climb vertical surfaces by adhesion to a surface are preferred since those do not require additional support structures. Vacuum suction mechanisms are widely used in this regard. The suction force acting on the robot due to the negative pressure built up is used by these robots for the adhesion. A robot will fall off or overturn when the pressure difference drops down a certain threshold. In contrast, if the pressure difference becomes too high, the excessive amount of frictional forces will hinder the locomotion ability. Moreover, a wall cleaning robot should be capable of adapting the adhesion force to maintain the symmetry between safe adhesion and reliable locomotion since adhesion forces which are too low or too high hinder the safety of adhesion and reliability of locomotion respectively. Thus, the pressure difference needs to be sustained within a desired range to ensure a robotxe2x80x99s safety and reliability. However, the pressure difference built up by a vacuum system may unpredictably vary due to unexpected variation of air leakages due to irregularities in surfaces. The existing wall cleaning robots that use vacuum suction mechanisms for adhesion are not aware of the adhesion status, or subsequently responding to them. Therefore, this paper proposes a design for a wall cleaning robot that is capable of adapting vacuum power based on the adhesionawareness to improve safety and reliability. A fuzzy inference system is proposed here to adapt the vacuum power based on the variation of the adhesion and the present power setting of the vacuum. Moreover, an application of fuzzy logic to produce a novel controlling criterion for a wall cleaning robot to ensure safety and reliability of operation is proposed. A fuzzy inference system was used to achieve the control goals, since the exact underlying dynamics of the vacuumadhesion cannot be mathematically modeled. The design details of the robot are presented with due attention to the proposed control strategy. Experimental results confirmed that the performance of a robot with proposed adhesionawareness surpasses that of a robot with no adhesionawareness in the aspects of safety, reliability, and efficiency. The limitations of the work and future design suggestions are also discussed.

Design of an AdhesionAware Faxc3xa7ade Cleaning Robot Cleaning requirements of glass facades of highrise buildings have been significantly increased in recent years due to the growth of the construction industry. The conventional cleaning methods for highrise buildings require human labor where efficiency, cost, and safety are major concerns. Therefore, robotic systems that can climb and clean glass fagades in highrise buildings have been developed. Capability to attach to a facade surface is one of the critical requirements of a glass facade cleaning robot. Diverse approaches have been proposed for adhesion of cleaning robots to a glass facade. Active vacuum suction mechanisms are widely used for these robots since they provide better controllability to move the robots smartly on the surface. Notably, those are decent for a reconfigurable robot that can transit between window frames. The suction mechanism of a glass facade cleaning robot must provide a reliable suction force to make the robot stay safely and move smartly on a facade. Nevertheless, these suction mechanisms can be failed due to improper fastening between a facade and the mechanism, which may lead to safety and operational issues. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel method to realize the adhesionawareness of a glass facade cleaning robot. The adhesionawareness is realized by analyzing The current drawn by the motors attached to the impellers of the vacuum mechanisms. Experiment results validate the capability of the proposed approach in raising the adhesionawareness of a facade cleaning robot.