Autonomous Mobile Robot with Displacements in a

Vertical Plane and Applications in Cleaning Services

N. Alexandrescu1, T. C. Apostolescu2, C. Udrea1, D. Duminică1, L. A. Cartal1
1
„POLITEHNICA” University of Bucharest, nicolasalexandrescu@yahoo.fr, dinuudrea@yahoo.fr,
despina_duminica@yahoo.com, adi_cartal@yahoo.com
2
„Titu Maiorescu” University of Bucharest, apostolescucatalin@yahoo.com

Abstract – Robotic systems have lead to important progress in vacuum cleaning robots (robot dusters), lawn cutting robots,
the vast field of automation. Even if industrial robots prevailed pool cleaning robots and window cleaning robots.
initially, service robots intended to perform various activities,
including domestic tasks, have brought a substantial contribution TABLE I
in the latest two decades. Autonomous mobile robots used for ver- QUALITATIVE COMPARISON REGARDING ACTIVITY LEVEL IN THE
tical surface cleaning involve the most complex mechanical struc- FIELD OF ROBOTICS [1]
tures from the point of view of displacement kinematics as well as
fixing in operating points. Differently than service robots with Domain USA JAPAN KOREA EUROPE
horizontal plane displacement, this category of robots has to sup- Entries
port its own weight, fixing elements most frequently used being Fundamental research ***
*** *** ***
vacuum suction cups. **
The paper presents the construction, modelling and simulation Applicative research ** ***** **** ****
of functioning of a robot with displacements in a vertical plane National and multinational
** ***** ***** ****
research programs
used for cleaning vertical surfaces. The original robot construc-
Partnerships among uni-
tion, developed by the authors, covers the main basic functions of versities – industry - gov- ** ***** ***** ****
cleaning robots. ernment
Exits
Keywords – autonomous mobile robot, cleaning robot, electro- Military and civilian ro- ***
pneumatic actuation, vacuum fixing, mechanical construction botic vehicles ** ** **
*
Space robots *** ** - ***
Humanoid robots ** ***** **** **
I. INTRODUCTION
Industrial robots ** ***** ** ****
If industrial robotics represents a well-defined field and ap- Service robots *** *** **** ***
plications of industrial robots are, generally, clearly defined, Personal/ domestic robots ** ***** **** **
the development of robotics for services is characterized by Biological and biomedical ***
applications ** ** ****
*
constant innovation, as new applications arise every day [1]
[2].
If, for industrial robotics, the industrial robot plays the key A development trend of the field consists in the efforts for
role, the field of robotics for services includes, besides the ser- achieving a multifunctional domestic/personal robot that can
vice robot, all the devices, equipments and technologies with- assume functions nowadays fulfilled by distinct categories of
out industrial applications. robots.
Service robots can be classified in three main categories: An increased interest for technologies that use climbing ro-
service robots for professional applications, domestic robots bots [3] [5] [8] and walking robots [9] has been noticed in the
and robots for research and development. past couple of years. Among them, the ones referring to the
Table 1 [1] presents a summary of major directions of robot- development of window cleaning robots include two main as-
ics in USA, Asia and Europe. The “entries” design the types of pects:
resources and organizations involved in research and develop- • automatic cleaning of high buildings, improvement of
ment. The “exits” refer to results of research, quantified in ro- technological level and of productivity of service industry in
botic products and applications. The highest possible rating is the field of building maintenance;
five stars. • cleaning robots can be used on various types of build-
In this context, robotic cleaning systems, professional as ing, avoiding thus high costs involved by permanent gon-
well as personal have had a promising development, due to the dola-type systems (open platform-car or baskets) for individ-
high number of possible applications and to the fact that they ual buildings [3] [6].
exempted humans of a tiring, repeated and often dangerous As for recent developments in cleaning and maintenance ro-
activity [1] [3] [5] [6]. bots, there are some types of kinematic structures intended for
Professional systems include: floor cleaning systems, win- the movement on smooth vertical surfaces: multiple legs, slid-
dows and wall cleaning systems, climbing robots, pool clean- ing frames, wheels and chain tracks. There are four different
ing robots, cleaning robots for other applications (tanks, ships, principles of adherence used for climbing robots: vacuum suc-
boats, trains, and planes). Personal domestic robots refer to:
tion cups [3] [5] [8] [9], negative pressure, propeller, attach- A solution that uses two triangular platforms was adopted,
ment arms and grippers. that does not lead to a loss of equilibrium for the mechanical
Multiple-leg robots are highly complex due to the increased structure. Although the robot attaches itself to the glass surface
number of freedom degrees. Robots that use vacuum suction by the means of vacuum suction cups, a significant miniaturi-
cups and grasping grippers for fixing on buildings do not com- zation was achieved – pursued purpose, subordinate to the ob-
ply with miniaturization and low complexity requirements. jective of an autonomous mobile robot.
Some of the climbing robots were developed for movement on The kinematics scheme is presented in figure 1.
walls with complex surfaces. The interior platform – PLE - 7 is fixed on three vacuum
The main functions of robots with such destination include suction cups 9. The raising and lowering of the platform is con-
the following eight aspects [3]: trolled using a screw mechanism 8 actuated by the motor-
1. secure fixing on the glass surface. The climbing robot reduction gear M1R1. The toothed driving belt 4 allows the
has to firmly attach on the glass wall, in order to support synchronous movement of the three suction cups. Similarly, for
its weight, which is a big difference between a robot the exterior platform – PLE - 3 we have suction cups 1, the
with displacements in a vertical plane and a usual mechanism 2 and the motor-reduction gear M2R2 .
ground-walking robot; The driving toothed belt 6 and the motor-reduction gear
2. the displacement must cover the whole working zone, M3R3 – movement m3 allow the orienting rotation of the robot.
situated in a vertical plane; The guiding part 10 is fixed on the shaft 5.
3. the robot must be able to avoid windows obstacles, by
going around or by lifting, aspect that implies adequate
structural kinematics;
4. enough intelligence as to detect various obstacles, fea-
ture that implies sensors and software able to configure
or re-configure the operating space;
5. autonomous evolution with efficient fulfilment of work
tasks;
6. movement control function, in order to satisfy the re-
quirements of displacement on any trajectory and to
surmount obstacles;
7. friendly graphical user interface (GUI), all the informa-
tion obtained during functioning being sent back and
displayed on the GUI in the same phase with the feed-
back; Figure 1. The kinematic scheme of actuation.
8. efficient cleaning – is the last and most important/useful
function of cleaning robots, which subordinates all the Translation between platforms – movement m4 is achieved
other functions. by the means of motor-reduction gear M4R4 fixed on the inte-
It can be concluded that robots for cleaning glass walls must rior platform 7. A mechanism consisting of the gear 14 and the
maintain themselves and to displace on glass surfaces with rack 13 solidary with the guiding part is used. This type of
various inclinations, till 90° to the vertical plane, in the same mechanism was preferred instead of a screw mechanism which
time being able to fulfil the cleaning tasks, to be lightweight, to would be difficult to miniaturize. A rolling guideway 11 is also
have enough flexibility as to adapt to variable wall geometry used. Figure 2 presents the three-dimension model of the robot.
and enough intelligence to automatically detect and avoid ob-
stacles.
II. THE ORIGINAL CONSTRUCTION ROBOT

An original construction of robot with displacements in a

vertical plane and applications in cleaning services was devel-
oped in the Mechatronics and Precision Mechanics Department
of the “Politehnica” University of Bucharest [7].
Different from constructive and functional variations of ex-
isting vertical displacement robots, this robot has the require-
ment, which will imply superior quality, of an autonomous
displacement – with no connection to energy sources for the
displacement, vacuum and control. The functioning of the ro-
bot is ensured by batteries, placed on the robot with the vac-
uum pump.
With this functional ability, the robot can access different ar-
eas of the vertical plane, thus being less noticeable.
Figure 2. 3D model of the robot.
 III. DISPLACEMENT KINEMATICS

The value of the triangular platform side L = 247 mm, equi- a) one-step translation
lateral triangle, was adopted in order to obtain a stroke S of One-step translation of the robot, driven by the command
about 100…110 mm. A full cycle for a translation step (at- system, involves the following sequence of movements:
tachment on PLI suction cups – PLE translation - attachment - PLE raising (movement m2,up);
on PLE suction cups - PLI translation) ensures a displacement - PLE displacement (movement m4);
of 200…220 mm for the robot. This allows the tracking of a - PLE lowering (movement m2,down);
glass surface of 1500 mm in about seven cycles. If cycle dura- - PLI raising (movement m1,up);
tion of 8s is considered, the whole window size is travelled in - PLI displacement (movement m4);
less than one minute, which is convenient. - PLI lowering (movement m1,down);
Figure 3 presents the constructive solution adopted for the Figure 4 presents the kinematics of the exterior and interior
robot displacement. The vacuum suction cup 1 (supplied from platforms for a translation cycle, without the need of centring
the vacuum miniature pump by the nozzle 16) is embedded in the two platforms at the beginning and at the end of movement.
the sliding body 15 and can displace relatively to the guideway The stroke components of the S: Sa1 and Sa2 (S = Sa1 + Sa2) are
3. The parallel key 2 restraints the rotation. The fixing of the of interest when the movement is controlled using an encoder
robot in the vertical plane, considering the weight of the clean- of the translation motor that reads absolute positions of the
ing equipment, as well as the forces needed in the cleaning platforms.
process, are discussed in [4].
PLI
PLE
OE X
a OI

PLE PLI
X
b
sa1

X
c sa2

X
Figure 3. Detail regarding the actuation of the displacement relative to the d
suction cups. sa1

The used mechanism consists of the shaft-screw 13 and the

nut – interior thread manufactured in the body 15. The toothed
belt 11 and the belt gear 6 solidary with the shaft allow the
driving. Radial bearings 4 and stroke limiter with microswitch
7 can also be noticed.
The microswitches – two for each leg – are fixed on the cor-
ner brackets 8, adjustable relatively to the arm 5 solidary with
the plate 12 (PLI). The positioning of the suction cup is dis-
cerned by the disk 10 driven by the rod 14 in contact with the movements:
inner part of the slider. The spring 9 helps maintaining this
contact.
The displacements of the robot result as a combination of the
following categories of movements:
Figure 4. One-step translation. a. Positions of the two platforms: PLE and
PLI; b. Initial position; c. Position after PLE displacement; d. End position
(after PLI displacement).
b) rotation
Robot rotation is achieved by the following sequence of
- PLE raising (movement m2,up);
- PLE clockwise rotation of angle α (movement m3);
- PLE lowering (movement m2,down);
 - PLI raising (movement m1,up); The counter clockwise rotation needs only reversing the di-
- PLI clockwise rotation of angle α (movement m3); rection of the partial rotations ( FWD ↔ RW ). Axis X indi-
- PLI lowering (movement m1,down). cates the direction of the sliding axis of the robot. Initial cen-
This sequence leads to a rotation of angle α of 30°, which is tring of platforms is needed.
the recommended maximum angle of relative rotation between
platforms. The sequence is repeated till the achievement of the c) pseudo circular movement
desired angle rotation. The combination among a translation and a number of 30°
Figure 5 presents the phases of a 90° clockwise rotation. rotations leads to a movement outlining a 12-sided polygon, as
presented in figure 6.
PLI
PLE 30
PLI
a
O X
s
PLE
sa2 sa1 sa2 sa1
A B C A B C
s 0
30
R
0
30
O X
b

0
30 a
b
Figure 6. Pseudo circular movement. a. the positions of the platforms PLE
O and PLI during translation; b. The polygon of the trajectory.
c X

The translation has to start (point A of figure 6,a) and to stop

(point C of figure 6,a) in a centred state (the centres of the plat-
0
30 forms coincide).
The radius of the circle inscribed in the travelled polygon is
given by (1):
d O
X S
R= ≈ 1,867 ⋅ S (1)
2 ⋅ tg15 D
30
0
There are two ways in which the robot can be controlled:
with a data acquisition board 7344 National Instruments and
LabVIEW programming or, if a control independent of an ex-
e O ternal computer is required, a microcontroller control scheme
X attached to the robot can be designed. The microcontroller BS2
(Parallax) was used, easy to program but with a number of
30
0 limitations concerning the control of motor speeds.
In this case, a relay scheme relatively easy to implement was
preferred. Its disadvantage consists of the limitation of the
O
speed control to a single value, conveniently adopted.
f
X
IV. MODELLING AND SIMULATION OF THE ROBOT DISPLACEMENT

The displacement of the robot was modelled and simulated

f 0
30 using Cosmos Motion software.
The inertial data of the platforms, extracted from the me-
g O
chanical model built in Solid Works, are the following:
X
• For the interior platform (PLI):
- mass: 1516 g;
- coordinates of mass centre C: xC = - 6,82 mm; yC
Figure 5. Phases of a 90° clockwise rotation. a. initial state; b, d, f. Rotation
= 9,71 mm; zC = - 13,94 mm;
FWD of PLE with 30°; c, e, g. Rotation RW of PLI with 30°. - matrix of inertial moments:
⎛ J xx J xy J xz ⎞ ⎛ 80527 − 8204 7876 ⎞ tion cycle of 30º. This is determined by constructive aspects of
⎜
⎜ J yx
⎜⎜
J yy
⎟ ⎜ ⎟
J yz ⎟ = ⎜ − 8204 157301 − 7353 ⎟ gcm 2
⎟
[ ] (2)
the platforms, a rotation angle limitation of 40º, so an orienta-
tion rotation of 90º requires three rotation cycles of 30º: rota-
⎝ J zx J zy J zz ⎟⎠ ⎜⎝ 7876 − 7353 91181 ⎟⎠ tion of PLE with respect to fixed PLI, rotation PLI with respect
to fixed PLE and rotation PLE with respect to fixed PLI. Be-
tween these cycles there are stages for fixing the robot from
• For exterior platform (PLE):
one plate to the other.
• mass: 1496 g;
Figures 11, 12 and 13 present the simulation results. In the
• coordinates of mass centre C: xC = - 2,76 mm; yC = transitory areas, it can be noticed that the variation of the angu-
16,19 mm; zC = - 10,69 mm; lar acceleration presents deviations relatively to its theoretical
• matrix of inertial moments: shape. This phenomenon can be explained by the variation of
the static charges during platform rotation.
⎛ J xx J xy J xz ⎞ ⎛116690 2190 3427 ⎞
⎜
⎜ J yx
⎜⎜
J yy
⎟ ⎜ ⎟
J yz = ⎜ 2190 177508 − 15185 ⎟ gcm 2
⎟
⎟
[ ]
⎝ J zx J zy J zz ⎟⎠ ⎜⎝ 3427 − 15185 96372 ⎟⎠
(3)
In order to simulate the robot translation, for the relative
movement between platforms the interior platform was consid-
ered to be fixed. A parabolic variation was imposed for the
acceleration. The numeric values used for simulation are: dis-
placement ΔS = 100 mm , maximum acceleration amax = 500
mm / s2 and computed maximum speed vmax = 60 mm/s. The
following values were obtained: ΔS lim = 10.8 mm Figure 8. Variation of translation acceleration.
< ΔS = 100 mm , the movement can reach the above mentioned
maximum speed. The other kinematic elements have the fol-
lowing values: tac = 0.18 s ; treg = 1.4 s ; Per = 1.76 s .
Figures 7, 8 and 9 present the simulation results.

Figure 9. Displacement during translation.

Figure 7. Variation of translation speed.

The obtained values are significant for minimizing the dis-

placement time with a step relative to the translation move-
ment. This time, multiplied by the number of steps, together
with the time necessary for the suction cup displacements and
vacuum powering, determine the displacement speed for the
robot on linear trajectories
Figure 10 presents the variation of the instantaneous power
during translation of the PLE platform. The value of the maxi-
mum instantaneous power can be consequently computed: Ptr=
0.69 W.
The needed power at the exit of the driving motor was de-
termined to be equal to 1.42W, an important value for accom-
plishing the movements and their autonomy, basically an effi-
cient usage of the batteries as a power source.
The orienting rotation of the robot had the same objectives.
Changes for the robot’s orientation were considered for a rota-
Figure 10. Variation of the instantaneous power during the translation of PLE
platform.
Figure 14 presents the variation of the required couple at the
level of the platform. The negative values appear during the
braking stage and have recovery roles. The maximum value of
the couple is equal to 0.204 Nm.
The variation of the instantaneous power is presented in fig-
ure 15. The maximum power at the level of the platform is
equal to Prot = 0.13 W.
 Figure 11. Variation of angular speed during platform rotation.
Figure 12. Variation of angular acceleration during platform rotation.
Figure 13. Angle variation during rotation.
Figure 14. Variation of the needed couple during platform rotation.
The results obtained through simulation are in total accor-
dance with the laws that govern the mechanical movement be-
tween the two platforms. Theses cannot be compared to other
robots as similar approaches have not been identified.
Figure 15 Variation of instantaneous power during platform rotation.
Simulation is an important stage of the research and devel-
opment activity done so far, the obtained results have been
used in the dimensioning and choosing of driving motors M1,
…. , M4 and will be compared (validated) by experimental
data, stage that the autonomous mobile robot is in, as an actual
experimental model.
V. CONCLUSIONS
The original construction of autonomous robot with vertical
plane displacement built by the authors is able to perform its
intended function: the efficient cleaning of glass surfaces and
hard to reach areas. The modelling and simulation of the robot
functioning, developed for platform translation as well as for
relative rotation of the platforms, certifies that its performances
are comparable to similar solutions conceived worldwide, in
conditions of dimensioning in meters and weights in the area of
(50 … 100) daN.
The overall size of the robot, 350mm x 350mm x 220mm,
proves that the degree of robot miniaturization is optimal, and
with a quality of autonomous displacement, which was another
objective of the design and building.
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