IAES International Journal of Robotics and Automation (IJRA) Vol. 12, No. 1, March 2023, pp. 1~19 ISSN: 2722-2586, DOI: 10.11591/ijra.v12i1.pp1-19  1 Journal homepage: http://ijra.iaescore.com Mechanism design for walking typed solar panel-cleaning robot using triple driving lines Woo Jin Jang 1 , Jin Gahk Kim 2 , Sang Hun Lee 2 , Dong Hwan Kim 3 1 Equipment Technology Research Center, Samsung Electronics, Suwon, Korea 2 Department of Robotics, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, Korea 3 Department of Mechanical Design and Robot Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, Korea Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Aug 18, 2021 Revised Dec 24, 2021 Accepted Jan 10, 2022 In this study, we propose a walking-type solar power cleaning robot mechanism driven by a driving unit composed of three driving lines. The triple driving lines are driven using a link mechanism, and vacuum pads are attached to each driving line to move the robot body through a sequence operation between the three lines. Through this mechanism, the robot body can be moved horizontally with the panel without folding the pad, and the amount of vertical movement is minimized during movement. By analyzing the pressure patterns of the pads on the driving line, smooth and fast movement was possible. Keywords: Driving lines Linkage mechanism Solar panel-cleaning robot Vacuum pads Walking typed robot This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Dong Hwan Kim Department of Mechanical Design and Robot Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology Seoul, Korea Email: ziyad.allawi@gmail.com 1. INTRODUCTION Today, as the demand for solar energy is increasing, the solar market is expanding both domestically and abroad [1]–[4]. Also, as the solar panel installation cost is gradually reduced, the demand for solar panel for home is also increasing. As the demand for home solar panels increases, regular maintenance is also becoming more important. Industrial photovoltaic panels installed in large-scale complexes that produce a large amount of energy use large-scale moving devices to clean solar panels, but relatively small-scale photovoltaic panels are maintained and cleaned with robot-type cleaning devices. Large-scale industrial photovoltaic panels use rail-type photovoltaic panel-cleaning robots for management, but manpower must be used to clean relatively small panels [5]–[8]. This issue causes considerable economic burden and safety problems. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to develop an autonomous mobile solar panel-cleaning robot that can easily clean small-scale solar panels [9]–[11]. In order to manufacture a robot capable of running on a panel with a maximum inclination angle of 40 degrees, a walking-driving unit was devised that improved the driving problems of the existing mobile solar panel-cleaning robot. In general, if wheels or caterpillars are used without using a suction pad, it is difficult to drive a high-inclined panel [12]–[15]. On the other hand, when a caterpillar-type [16]–[18] driving part using suction pads is used, 1sometimes slippage occurs due to the folding of the pad [19]–[22]. In this study, we propose a driving module that can drive high-inclined panels and minimize pad folding. Additionally, a new driving unit design method that can increase the moving speed of the walking type solar panel-cleaning robot is proposed, and an adsorption mechanism according to the triple driving unit structure is proposed. The designed walking robot is manufactured and tested to verify its performance.