A visual sensing application to a climbing cleaning robot on the glass surface

This paper describes a visual sensing application to a climbing robot that provides cleaning service on the glass wall of high-rise buildings. The robot uses suction cups to stick on the glass, moves with a translation mechanism, and adjusts its orientation by rotating a flexible waist. A visual sensor, composed of an oriented CCD camera and two laser diodes, is used to measure the robot's position and orientation relative to the window frame on the glass surface. The visual sensor is also used to locate the dirt spot to be cleaned. The mathematical model and the measure methodology of the visual sensing system are discussed. Experiments are performed to calibrate the visual sensor, measure the position and orientation of the robot, and measure the location of the dirty spot. The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.