Design and analysis of a wheel-leg compound variable curvature ship hull cleaning robot

Underwater robotic cleaning devices are promising in ship hull maintenance for biofouling removal, but there are still some challenges for commercial application. Due to the complex surface of the ship hull, larger adsorptive force is needed for climbing robots to solve the problem of poor fitting between rigid structure and ship hull, which calls for more driving power. To mitigate the gap, this paper proposed a flexible wheel-leg composite moving mechanism for ship hull cleaning robots. The designed adjustable wheel leg, which is composed of three leg frames on the rotating shaft, eliminates the magnetic wheel's position constraints and expands the movement space. The relation equations of flip angle, pitching angle, turning angle, and hull curvature radius are generated and analyzed based on the robot's posture and steering motion. The mechanical properties of anti-slippage and anti-shedding under different motion states were studied so that the robot's critical point and limit adsorption force could be determined and verified. Simulation results show that the robot has good motion stability.