Includes a title page in Arabic

Thesis (Ph.D.) Doctoral Egypt - Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) - School of Innovative Design Engineering - Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering Department 2017

This thesis proposes a new propeller-type climbing robot called "EJBot" for climbing various surfaces and structures The motivation behind proposing such robot comes from the drawbacks of the previous robots which climb only certain kind of surface materials or terrains In contrast to previous climbing robots , EJBot can climb and navigate structures made of various materials with smooth or rough surfaces , besides handling different obstacles The novelty of this robot stands out from utilizing a hybrid actuation system consists mainly of propeller thrust forces and wheel torques actuated simultaneously to generate the required adhesion and traction forces The pro- peller thrust forces help to increase the friction forces which can be generated between the robot wheels and the surface In contrast to other propeller-type climbing robots that use only propeller thrust forces for the adhesion and navigation , the proposed robot utilizes the actuated wheels to generate the required torques either to fix the robot at a certain position or to move it to the desired location Since the motion of the robot is controlled by actuated wheels , the navigation stability is guaranteed which was a problem in previous propeller-type climbing robots The main target of EJBot is to provide the petrochemical companies with a versatile climbing robot for exploration and inspection of the interiors of petrochemical and liquefied gas vessels Some of these vessels are made of austenitic stainless steel which does not have a magnetic characteristic EJBot enables the human outside the vessels to perform the required regular inspection efficiently The main tasks of the robot are visual inspection of the critical spots inside the vessels , such as welds and joints , besides measuring the wall thickness Design as well as dynamic simulation and control of the proposed robot are carried out using ANSYS , ADAMS and Matlab software A prototype of EJBot is built and tested in various climbing scenarios indoors and outdoors The experimental tests to check the robot's capabilities of climbing different surfaces , such as smooth, rough, flat and cylindrical surfaces , are carried out successfully In addition , the robot can stop accurately on the climbed surface at any desired location for inspection purposes

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