J Intell Robot Syst (2015) 78:65–81 DOI 10.1007/s10846-014-0076-z Navigation’s Stabilization System of a Magnetic Adherence-Based Climbing Robot Rodrigo Val´ erio Espinoza · Andr´ e Schneider de Oliveira · L´ ucia Val´ eria Ramos de Arruda · Fl´ avio Neves Junior Received: 13 November 2013 / Accepted: 17 June 2014 / Published online: 5 July 2014 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract This paper presents a climbing robot based on wheel locomotion and magnetic adherence. The proposed mechanical design stands on four unaligned magnetic wheels disposed in two parallel axes, which provides a great advantage when passing over obsta- cles. The goal of the robot is to perform inter- nal/external inspection in liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage tanks and other industrial storage struc- tures. Thus, there are a few of severe operation fea- tures (like adherence and force balance) that impose hard conditions to robot’s navigation. To satisfy these conditions, a dynamic control system was developed in two modules: active gravitational compensation system and adherence stabilization system. Simulated and experimental tests were carried out in order to R. V. Espinoza () · A. S. de Oliveira · L. V. R. de Arruda · F. N. Junior Federal University of Technology - Paran´ a, Av. Sete de Setembro, 3165, Curitiba, Paran´ a, Brazil e-mail: rodrigovespinoza@gmail.com A. S. de Oliveira e-mail: andreoliveira@utfpr.edu.br L. V. R. de Arruda e-mail: lvrarruda@utfpr.edu.br F. N. Junior e-mail: neves@utfpr.edu.br verify the satisfaction of mechanical constraints and to validate the control system performance. Keywords Climbing robot · Magnetic adhesion · Active gravitational compensation · Adhesion control · Adhesion loss estimation 1 Introduction Climbing robots (CR) are multi-task mobile robotic systems useful for complex environments. These robots can be used in several industries such as petro- chemical, nuclear and other power plants, which com- monly present hazardous tasks. CRs are particularly useful to do maintenance and implement inspections tasks. In this context, we present a CR architecture to perform autonomous ultrasonic inspection on large industrial metallic structures such as tanks, pipelines, ship hulls among others structures. The proposed CRs operation scheme can be seen in Fig. 1. The robot presents two operation modes. In non-autonomous mode, the robot is fully controlled by an operator. In autonomous mode, a set of tasks is carried out without human intervention. The robot functions such as trajectory planning and system auto- tuning are initial procedures executed sequentially. Operational tasks related to navigation and inspection are ran in parallel ways.