HangBot: A ceiling mobile robot with robust locomotion under a large payload (Key mechanisms integration and performance experiments)

This research aims to develop a ceiling mobile robot that can sustain a large payload and can locomote freely under a ceiling space. In our approach, a perforated metal, one of the recent popular architectural materials, is utilized as a ceiling plate and the robot hooks and hangs the sequential holes of the ceiling plate by mechanical constraint. To realize the robot, the authors developed three key mechanisms, (1) ceiling hanging mechanism for the perforated metal, (2) horizontal locomotion mechanism like an inchworm, and (3) pantograph mechanism for smoothing horizontal locomotion speed and for load balancing. A unit testing of the ceiling hanging mechanism and the integration horizontal locomotion experiments confirmed the good performance of each mechanisms and the feasibility of mechanically constrained ceiling mobile robot. However, it was revealed that higher power motors and a stiffer body structure should be installed to sustain an extremely large payload like a human.