LAUSR

ABSTRACT This paper describes a kind of mobile robot, named cable-climbing robot, and its motion planning development. That robotic system is capable of moving over electricity distribution lines, which can easily overcome the obstacles present in those installations like insulators, thanks to its kinematic motion planning of collision avoidance. The cable-climbing robot avoids the obstacles by the adoption of sequential movement planning with the objective of climbing insulators in electric posts. This approach avoids the obstacles, making the robot-articulated suspensions to retract when it is close to the obstacle and to distend after it passes over it. This kind of movement is controlled by a geometric motion planning method which is performed by the quintic polynomial interpolation law. The kinematic modelling uses the screw-based Jacobian Method combining with Virtual Kinematic chains, which permits the usage of the Kirchhoff-Davies method. Thus obtaining the cable-climbing robot inverse kinematic model. Simulation shows the potential use of this technique to cope with the cable-climbing robots control.