Abstract
In aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) procedures, sanding for paint removal is currently carried out manually on composite parts of the airframe. The process is very skill dependent and technicians need to work at height, which constitutes a safety hazard. In this thesis, we explore the design of a Surface Propagation Robot (SPR) capable of navigating around the upper half of the aircraft fuselage for performing such an application. The proposed solution consists of a top and bottom anchoring system with rope attachment to provide the structural framework for the robot to climb vertically and horizontally along the airplane’s external surfaces. The design of the robot is guided by the 4D design thinking methodology and employs a modular design approach. It consists of two key components, namely; i) a climbing unit that utilizes a toothed pulley to grip onto the rope for climbing, and ii) a surface propagation unit that utilizes a leg-air bearing mechanism to conform and move along the aircraft curved surface. Experiments were conducted to verify the resulting SPR performance driven by the MIT Cheetah Motor. It was found that the resulting robot can climb with a payload of up to 15kg while moving with a vertical speed of 15cm/s.