A model for optimising the size of climbing robots for navigating truss structures

Truss structures can be found in many buildings and civil infrastructure such as bridges and towers. But as these architectures age, their maintenance is required to keep them structurally sound. A legged robotic solution capable of climbing these structures for maintenance is sought, but determining the size and shape of such a robot to maximise structure coverage is a challenging task. This paper proposes a model in which the size of a multi-legged robot is optimised for coverage in a truss structure. A detailed representation of a truss structure is presented, which forms the novel framework for constraint modelling. With this framework, the overall truss structure coverage is modelled, given a robot's size and its climbing performance constraints. This is set up as an optimisation problem, such that its solution represents the optimum size of the robot that satisfies all constraints. Three case studies of practical climbing applications are conducted to verify the model. By intuitive analysis of the model's output data, the results show that the model accurately applies these constraints in a variety of truss structures.