SCID Sliding Climbing Inspection Device

The robot SCID (Sliding Climbing Inspection Device), developed at DEES laboratory, has been designed to slide down over a ferromagnetic vertical surface, using two electromagnets. This systems can be adopted in all those places where direct access by a human operator is very expensive (because of the need of scaffolding) or very dangerous (due to the presence of a hostile environment), so possible application is in the inspection of the surface of petrochemical storage tanks. Among the most important factors to be inspected are the rate of corrosion, the potential risk of air or water pollution, the detection of leaks, etc.

The on-board electronics and the used control algorithms, allow the system to control its velocity and trajectory. In order to reduce its dimensions, weight and cost, this robot does not adopt any actuator for locomotion but only gravity, so it is simpler with respect to many others systems designed for the same application. Moreover it is fully autonomous, can be easily reprogrammed with a standard PC using a simple user interface and it can carry some sensor like a CCD camera to inspect the surface, using a RF connection to transfer images data to a fixed console.

The system has been successfully tested over some metal surfaces.

1. D. Longo, G. Muscato, "SCID: A non actuated robot for walls exploration", Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, pp.874-879, Como, Italy July 2001.

2. D. Longo, G. Muscato, "A Small Low-Cost Low-Weight Inspection Robot with Passive-Type Locomotion", Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, Vol. 11 N. 4, pp. 339-348, 2004.