RaccoonBot: An Autonomous Wire-Traversing Solar-Tracking Robot for Persistent Environmental Monitoring
🤖 AI Summary
To address the need for long-term, maintenance-free environmental monitoring in inaccessible environments such as forests, this paper proposes an autonomous inspection robot that traverses overhead power lines. Methodologically, we introduce a novel fail-safe, self-locking mechanical architecture and an energy-aware solar-tracking algorithm, enabling power-loss-triggered self-locking and real-time dynamic adjustment of the robot’s orientation to maximize solar energy harvesting. The system integrates a mechatronic climbing mechanism, real-time photometric–attitude–fused tracking control, and a low-power embedded platform. Experimental results demonstrate stable operation under cable vibrations and multi-angle inclinations, achieving energy autonomy in complex forested environments with significantly extended operational endurance. This work establishes a robust, field-deployable platform for long-term ecological monitoring in remote natural settings.
Application Category
📝 Abstract
Environmental monitoring is used to characterize the health and relationship between organisms and their environments. In forest ecosystems, robots can serve as platforms to acquire such data, even in hard-to-reach places where wire-traversing platforms are particularly promising due to their efficient displacement. This paper presents the RaccoonBot, which is a novel autonomous wire-traversing robot for persistent environmental monitoring, featuring a fail-safe mechanical design with a self-locking mechanism in case of electrical shortage. The robot also features energy-aware mobility through a novel Solar tracking algorithm, that allows the robot to find a position on the wire to have direct contact with solar power to increase the energy harvested. Experimental results validate the electro-mechanical features of the RaccoonBot, showing that it is able to handle wire perturbations, different inclinations, and achieving energy autonomy.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Autonomous Robots
Environmental Monitoring
Inaccessible Environments
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
RaccoonBot
Autonomous Wire Navigation
Solar Energy Optimization
🔎 Similar Papers
No similar papers found.
