A gecko-inspired robot for wind power tower inspection

In order to accomplish the task of wind power tower inspection, a heavy-loaded climbing robot inspired by geckos is presented in this paper. The robot not only imitates body's functions of geckos but also shows a design method. Wind power tower is a conical wall surface and its smallest radius is less than 2m. There will be a great gap when a robot climbing on such wall with small radius. The extraordinary climbing ability of geckos is considered as a remarkable design of nature that is attributed to its soft body, its multi-degree-of-freedom legs, and its strong-adsorbed toes. Focus on the feature of working on such wall surface, gecko's body, toes and legs are simplified as free joints, magnetic units and redundant tracks respectively, based on the functions of gecko's limbs and body. The adaptability of the robot is tested by the experiments in laboratory. With the gecko-inspired structure, the robot can climb on the wall surface with minimum 2m in diameter in any direction.