This thesis is concerned with the control system analysis of steel plate inspection robots and the design and development of co-operative mobile micro-robots and for the intelligent coordinated control over inspection tasks. This involves miniaturization of the existing steel plate inspection system and the introduction of intelligent control over a novel path-planning algorithm for single or several similar cooperative micro inspection robots to perform multitasking inspection. To automate steel plate inspection, the Centre for Automated & Robotic – NDT (CART) department of London South Bank University successfully developed a self navigating steel plate inspection robot [1]. However the resulting system has complex hardware arrangements for inspection. Therefore, this research is concerned with reducing the size as well the complexity of the inspection system and the reduction of the inspection time with larger area of coverage. Accordingly, cooperative micro-robots are realized for inspection. Part (1) of the thesis includes related and researched work for the control system analysis. The research findings lead to the identification of the directed parallel method (DPM) for the inspection robot using a derived cost equation. Consequently, research identified the work area sensory environment (SE) having a camera fixed permanently at a height above the work area. Research developed a DPM algorithm to find any coordinate location of the multitasking inspection robots on a (planar) rectangular inspection area. Research developed an efficient intelligent control to automate steel plate inspection which is required to enable reliable control operations over the micro-robots. Part (2) reports simulation of cooperative robots, the development of two micro-robot prototypes and their real time movements on the work area. The robot’s path and speed are complied with the inspection standards. With the two cooperative micro-robot prototypes, the results show that for a larger area of coverage the inspection time can be reduced to more than half compared to that of the CART’s previous single complex robot.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:631743 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Sreedharan, Suresh |
| Publisher | London South Bank University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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