Development of peristaltic crawling robot moving between two narrow, vertical planes

Stirred tanks used in various fields for chemical reactions have double structures and the interior temperatures of the tanks are adjusted by injecting heat media or refrigerants into the interspace of two walls. However, because of impurities included in the medium, a large amount of excrescences are formed on the inner wall, which prevent heat transfer. Moreover, there are currently no techniques or robots that can inspect or clean the interspace. This is owing to the anomalous environment: between two vertical narrow planes. Therefore, we developed a peristaltic crawling robot that realizes the motion by the expansion and contraction of pneumatic artificial muscles for the maintenance of stirred tanks. In this study, we first focused on realizing movement between two vertical narrow planes. We also realized stable horizontal locomotion with a speed of 2.53 mm/s and a new turning motion between two 50-mm-wide vertical planes.