Authors:
Daniel Schmidt
;
Jens Wettach
and
Karsten Berns
Affiliation:
University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
Keyword(s):
Simulation, Wall-Climbing Robot, Negative-Pressure Adhesion, Thermodynamic Model, Visualization.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics
;
Mobile Robots and Autonomous Systems
;
Modeling, Simulation and Architectures
;
Robotics and Automation
;
Signal Processing, Sensors, Systems Modeling and Control
;
System Modeling
Abstract:
Simulation frameworks are wide-spread in the range of robotics to test algorithms and analyze system behavior
beforehand – which tremendously reduces effort and time needed for conducting experiments on the real
machines. This paper addresses a component based framework for simulating a wall-climbing robot that uses
negative pressure adhesion in combination with an omnidirectional drive system. Key aspect is the adhesion
system which interacts with the environmental features such as surface characteristics (e. g. roughness) or
defects. An elaborate thermodynamic model provides the basis for a realistic simulation of the airflow between
the virtual environment and the vacuum chambers of the robot. These features facilitate the validation of
closed-loop controllers and control algorithms offline and in realtime.