4Steel-Robot: A Climbing Mobile Robot for Gas Containers Inspection ARMANDO SEGOVIA DE LOS R. 1,2 , MAYRA GARDUÑO G. 2 , ARMIDA GONZÁLEZ L 3 1 National Institute of Nuclear Research Apdo. Post 18-1027, México, D. F., C. P. 11801. MEXICO 2 Technological Institute of Toluca Av. Inst. Tec. s/n, Metepec, Edo. de México, C. P. 52140. MEXICO 3 Technological Institute of San Juan del Río, Av. Tecnológico No. 2, Col. Centro, San Juan del Río, Querétaro, C. P. 76800 asegovia@nuclear.inin.mx, mayrag2001@hotmail.com, armida@acm.org Abstract: - The purpose of the project is to design and build a wireless wall climbing robot to accomplish remotely ultrasonic and visual inspections in large gas containers, avoiding in this way the necessity to use scalfolding and reduce the risks for the technicians in charge of these works. The robot is proposed as a four-legged machine, whose legs are built by means of a servomotor and a linear actuator. Other objective of this work is prouve if two degrees of freedom are enough to achieve the movility required for the robot. For the control of the robot a single board computer is being used, employing for this purpose Max-FORTH as the programming language of the microcontroller. At this moment several experiments have being carried out to demonstrate the performance of the gait proposed for this walking machine. The advances in the developing of this machine are here presented. Key-Words: - Mobile Robot, Walking Machine, Magnetic Adhesion, Java Programming, Forth Programming Language, Gait 1. Introduction Robotics has achieved to the date a great success in the world of manufacturing industry. Robotic arms, or manipulators, conform in the United States an industry of 2 trillions of dollars. Screwed by its shoulders to a fixed position in the line of joint, the robotic arm can move at great speed and exactitude to make repetitive tasks such as welding points and painting. In the electronic industry, the manipulators place superficial assembly components with super-human accuracy, making the cellular telephones and the portable computers possible. In spite of all these successes, these commercial robots suffer of a fundamental disadvantage: lack of mobility. A manipulator of this type has a limited rank of movement that depends on where it has been screwed. On the other hand, a mobile robot is able to cross a manufacture plant, in a very flexible way, applying its talents where these are more effective. Mobile robots are classified by the used types of control or by the kind of environment in which they must evolve. In accordance with this last characteristic, it is possible to have the following mobile robots: Terrestrial, Aerial, Aquatic, Space [1]. Even within these categories there is a great variety, depending on the specific characteristics of means. For example, if the land is flat, a wheel robot is preferable to develop high speeds; if the land is irregular, a caterpillar robot can be the best election; nevertheless, if the land is very irregular, a legged robot is superb. Robots are used in tasks that represent a risk for the human integrity or in those that are repetitive or tedious [2]. The robotic system proposed in this project is to be used where works represent some risks for human operators. In the National Institute of Nuclear Research (Mexico) there exists the Materials Department (MD), who is in charge to yield support to PEMEX (Mexican Oil Company) for inspection and monitoring of its fuel reservoirs. For example, MD’s personnel must realize periodically ultrasonic Proceedings of the 3rd WSEAS/IASME International Conference on Dynamical Systems and Control, Arcachon, France, October 13-15, 2007 200