An industrial walking machine for naval construction

Legged locomotion has been extensively investigated in the last two decades, during which time many walking machines have been built as test-beds for research purposes. Legged locomotion technology now seems to be ready to take on industrial applications. This paper presents a legged machine-ROWER-for a real industrial application in naval construction processes. The main task of the walking machine is to provide full motion to a welding manipulator in a very complex scenario, the double hull of a ship. This scenario consists of cells fitted with stiffeners on the top, bottom, and lateral walls to reinforce the ship´s structure. The legged machine moves through the cell grasping the top and bottom reinforcements rather than walking on the bottom plane. This improves the machine´s stiffness and guarantees its stability. This paper describes the walking machine´s main structure, the leg structure, and grasping mechanism. It then defines and simulates the gait for walking while grasping the stiffeners. Finally, it reports the features of a full-size leg