Unmanned High-Rise Façade Cleaning Robot Implemented on a Gondola: Field Test on 000-Building in Korea

Abstract

Facade cleaning is very difficult and dangerous work for human workers. The automation of facade cleaning is considered a large market with significant potential, and it is also considered a market that needs to be replaced by a robotic solution. Several researchers have previously attempted to replace the facade cleaning task by a semi-automated device; however, there is no effective solution yet on the market. In this paper, we share our experiences involving the unmanned facade cleaning robot equipped on a gondola. The robot is composed of a two-degree of freedom robotic manipulator and a cleaning device. The cleaning device sprays a cleaning solution, brushes the solution, and retrieves the solution by suction with a squeegee. A robust controller is used to operate the robot manipulator in order to control the force and position of the cleaning device to the wall. The robot is tested on the 63-building, which is the most popular high-rise building in Korea, and the successful results are obtained with respect to the cleaning performance, with some problems requiring further improvements. From the field test, we find the potential to commercialize the robotic platform, as well as some information to improve the robot's performance. We believe that the information on the cleaning experiment may be helpful for field robot researchers.