Force control of cleaning tool system for building wall maintenance robot on built-in guide rail

In modern days, there has been an increasing trend to build high-rise buildings. Until now, the methods to maintain building wall have relied on human efforts. However, there exist dangers and difficulties caused by height of buildings. Due to this problem, the need for system that can maintain building wall has been increasing and various systems have been developed. On this, the building maintenance robot that is used for built-in guide rail and tool system for cleaning wall of building was developed. Cleaning tool system equipped to building maintenance robot system has squeezing and injection functions. This system operates with spreading the water through injection part and eliminating dust and contaminants using squeezing module. Throughout this process, flow control is needed to spread water evenly on window at the changing velocity of robot. Also, the angle of the squeezing module and the force which is applied to window should be controlled to prevent damage of wall and to remove contaminants completely. This paper suggests algorithms for control of position and force of the squeezing module to implement cleaning building window composed of segmented façade. In addition, flow control algorithm for uniform injection is proposed. After that, the results of experiment in consistent robot velocity and transition of squeezer angle were shown and analyzed.