A visual inspection robot

Abstract

The application discloses a visual inspection robot, comprising a mobile chassis, a telescopic stand, a holder assembly and a ring-shaped LED light supplementing and heat dissipating device. The mobile chassis adopts a three-layer structure of an upper cover plate, a middle layer frame and a lower layer bottom plate, and realizes multidimensional damping through damping rubber pads and spring columns, and cooperates with independent suspension arms to reduce the image blur rate by 62%. The holder assembly realizes modular disassembly and assembly through T-shaped guide rails and quick-release buckles, and the disassembly and assembly time is shortened to 3 minutes. The telescopic stand realizes height adjustment of the camera in the range of 200-600 mm through the sliding cooperation of the inner cylinder and the outer cylinder and the locking mechanism of the limiting hole. The ring-shaped LED light supplementing and heat dissipating device integrates the light supplementing lamp and the heat dissipation fin, realizes temperature management through the heat-conducting silicone grease layer and the temperature controller, and reduces the temperature rise of the camera by 65%. The application is suitable for automatic visual inspection in scenes such as electric power, chemical industry and data center.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of robotics, and in particular to a visual inspection robot for detecting the appearance of equipment, instrument readings, and environmental anomalies in industrial settings. Background Technology

[0002] In industrial settings such as power substations, chemical plants, and data centers, regular inspections are a crucial step in ensuring the safe operation of equipment. Traditional manual inspection methods suffer from low efficiency, significant safety hazards, and difficulties in standardizing inspection data.

[0003] In recent years, inspection robots have been gradually applied in industrial settings, replacing manual labor in routine inspection tasks. However, existing inspection robots have the following structural shortcomings: (1) CN215037416U discloses a chassis structure of an explosion-proof wheeled intelligent inspection robot. Its chassis adopts an integral frame structure. Although it has certain explosion-proof performance, the chassis has limited shock absorption effect. When driving on complex roads, the camera shakes severely, affecting the image acquisition quality.

[0004] (2) CN214751536U discloses a gimbal for a track-type intelligent inspection robot, which realizes the camera orientation adjustment through a two-axis gimbal. However, the gimbal is fixedly connected to the robot body, making disassembly and maintenance inconvenient. Moreover, the shock absorption mechanism is simple and has insufficient suppression effect on high-frequency vibration.

[0005] (3) CN222959946U discloses an inspection robot with a shock-absorbing chassis. The shock-absorbing chassis uses a combination of springs and rubber pads, but the spring stiffness is not adjustable and cannot adapt to the shock absorption requirements under different load conditions. In addition, its camera height is fixed and the shooting angle and distance cannot be adjusted according to different inspection targets.

[0006] (4) The existing supplementary lighting devices of inspection robots are mostly independent external LED lights. There is no thermal management design between them and the camera body. When working for a long time, the heat generated by the LED is conducted to the camera body, affecting the image quality. At the same time, the brightness of the supplementary light is not adjustable, and it is difficult to obtain the best lighting effect in both strong light and weak light environments. Summary of the Invention

[0007] The technical problem to be solved by this invention is: to address the problems of poor chassis shock absorption, inconvenient gimbal assembly and disassembly, non-adjustable camera height, and insufficient supplementary lighting and heat dissipation in existing inspection robots, and to provide a visual inspection robot with a multi-dimensional shock-absorbing chassis, a modular quick-release gimbal, a liftable and telescopic column, and an integrated structure of ring-shaped LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation.

[0008] To solve the above-mentioned technical problems, the technical solution provided by the present invention is as follows: a visual inspection robot, including a mobile chassis, a telescopic column, a gimbal assembly, and a ring-shaped LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation device; the lower end of the telescopic column is fixedly connected to the mobile chassis, the gimbal assembly is detachably installed on the upper end of the telescopic column by a quick-release buckle, and the ring-shaped LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation device is arranged around the camera mounting base of the gimbal assembly.

[0009] The mobile chassis includes an upper cover plate, a middle frame, a lower base plate, multiple sets of spring columns, and independent suspension arms. A shock-absorbing rubber pad is provided between the upper cover plate and the middle frame. The middle frame and the lower base plate are connected by the multiple sets of spring columns. One end of each independent suspension arm is hinged to the lower base plate, and the other end is connected to a drive wheel. The multiple sets of spring columns are evenly distributed along the length of the middle frame. Each set of spring columns includes a sleeve, a spring, and a guide rod. The spring is disposed inside the sleeve, and the guide rod passes through the spring and is connected to both the middle frame and the lower base plate.

[0010] The gimbal assembly includes a gimbal mounting base plate, a T-shaped guide rail, three sets of shock-absorbing springs, a horizontal rotary table, a pitch bracket, and a camera mounting base. The T-shaped guide rail is disposed on the upper surface of the gimbal mounting base plate. The horizontal rotary table is connected to the gimbal mounting base plate through the three sets of shock-absorbing springs. The pitch bracket is rotatably connected to the horizontal rotary table. The camera mounting base is detachably connected to the pitch bracket through quick-release clips.

[0011] The telescopic column includes an outer cylinder, an inner cylinder, limiting holes, and a locking knob; the outer cylinder has multiple equally spaced limiting holes along the axial direction, the inner cylinder is slidably fitted inside the outer cylinder, and the locking knob passes through the limiting holes of the outer cylinder and abuts against the outer wall of the inner cylinder; the outer wall of the outer cylinder has a wiring groove extending along the axial direction.

[0012] The annular LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation device includes an annular LED light panel, multiple heat dissipation fins, a thermally conductive silicone grease layer, and a temperature controller. The annular LED light panel is arranged around the outer periphery of the camera mounting base. The multiple heat dissipation fins are arranged parallel to each other along the longitudinal direction of the camera mounting base and are attached to the outer wall of the camera mounting base through the thermally conductive silicone grease layer. The temperature controller is located at the end of the heat dissipation fins and is used to control the power supply current of the LED beads according to the temperature signal.

[0013] Beneficial effects Compared with the prior art, the technical solution of this invention has the following advantages: (1) The mobile chassis of the present invention adopts a three-layer shock absorption structure (shock-absorbing rubber pad + spring column + independent suspension arm), which realizes multi-dimensional shock absorption in the vertical and front-back directions, effectively isolates the vibration generated during walking, and enables the gimbal and camera installed on the top of the column to maintain stable image acquisition quality at high movement speed, reducing the image blur rate by more than 60%.

[0014] (2) The modular quick-release gimbal assembly is quickly assembled and disassembled with the telescopic column through T-shaped guide rails and quick-release buckles. The replacement or maintenance of the gimbal module can be completed within 3 minutes, which greatly improves the operation and maintenance efficiency. At the same time, the three sets of shock-absorbing springs inside the gimbal provide secondary isolation from high-frequency mechanical vibration, forming a dual shock absorption system in conjunction with the chassis shock absorption.

[0015] (3) The height-adjustable telescopic column achieves stepless adjustment of the camera height from 200mm to 600mm through the sliding fit between the inner and outer cylinders and the locking mechanism of the limit hole, enabling the robot to adapt to inspection targets of different heights (such as instrument panels, switch cabinets, cable joints, etc.) without the need for additional support brackets of different heights.

[0016] (4) The ring-shaped LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation integrated structure integrates the supplementary light and heat dissipation fins into the same component. The heat dissipation fins are tightly attached to the outer wall of the camera through a thermally conductive silicone grease layer, effectively dissipating the heat generated by the LED and reducing the operating temperature of the camera by 15°C to 20°C. The temperature controller automatically adjusts the LED brightness according to the temperature, extending the lifespan of the LED beads while ensuring the supplementary lighting effect. Attached Figure Description

[0017] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the overall structure of the visual inspection robot of the present invention; Figure 2 This is an exploded view of the modular quick-release gimbal assembly of the present invention; Figure 3 This is a structural cross-sectional view of the multi-dimensional shock-absorbing chassis of the present invention; Figure 4 This is a schematic diagram of the structure of the height-adjustable and telescopic column of the present invention; Figure 5 This is a cross-sectional view of the integrated ring-shaped LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation structure of the present invention; Figure 6 This is a block diagram of the control system for the visual inspection robot of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0018] The present invention will now be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments.

[0019] Example 1 like Figures 1 to 6As shown, the visual inspection robot of this embodiment includes a mobile chassis (1), a telescopic column (2), a gimbal assembly (3), and a ring-shaped LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation device (4).

[0020] The mobile chassis (1) serves as the load-bearing foundation for the entire machine and adopts a three-layer shock-absorbing structure design. The upper cover plate (111) is made of aluminum alloy sheet with a thickness of 5mm, and the upper surface is used to install the base connecting plate (26) of the telescopic column (2). Three shock-absorbing rubber pads (112) are set between the upper cover plate (111) and the middle frame (113). The material is silicone rubber with a Shore hardness of 50HA and a thickness of 10mm, which is used to absorb high-frequency vibrations. The middle frame (113) is a welded aluminum alloy square tube structure with dimensions of 500mm×350mm×60mm. The middle frame (113) is connected to the lower base plate (115) by three sets of spring columns (114), which are evenly distributed along the longitudinal direction of the middle frame. Each set of spring columns (114) includes a sleeve (1141) with an outer diameter of 30mm, a spring (1142) with a stiffness coefficient of K=2N / mm, and a guide rod (1143) with a diameter of 8mm. The lower base plate (115) is made of 5mm aluminum alloy plate, with a set of independent suspension arms (116) on each side. Each set of independent suspension arms includes upper and lower control arms, which are hinged to the lower base plate through rubber bushings. The drive wheel (11) is a 200mm diameter pneumatic rubber wheel with a brushless DC motor integrated in the hub, rated at 150W. There is an 80mm diameter swivel wheel (12) at the front and rear of the chassis for support and auxiliary steering.

[0021] The telescopic column (2) is located in the center of the cover plate of the mobile chassis. The outer cylinder (22) is an aluminum alloy square tube with a cross section of 60mm×40mm, a wall thickness of 3mm, and a length of 400mm. On one side of the outer cylinder (22), there are 8 limiting holes (24) with a diameter of 6mm at equal intervals (50mm spacing) along the axial direction. The inner cylinder (23) is an aluminum alloy square tube with a cross section of 50mm×30mm, a wall thickness of 2mm, and a length of 350mm, which is slidably fitted inside the outer cylinder. The locking knob (21) is an M6 hand screw that passes through the limiting hole of the outer cylinder and abuts against the outer wall of the inner cylinder to achieve height locking. The upper end of the inner cylinder is provided with a mounting flange (25) for connecting the gimbal assembly. The outer wall of the outer cylinder is also provided with a U-shaped cable tray (27) with a cross section of 15mm×10mm for accommodating the cables connecting the gimbal and the control cabin.

[0022] The gimbal assembly (3) is mounted on the mounting flange (25) on the top of the telescopic column via quick-release buckles (32). The gimbal mounting base plate (33) is made of aluminum alloy and has a T-shaped guide rail (34) on the bottom surface, which cooperates with the T-slot on the mounting flange to achieve positioning and guidance. The horizontal rotary table (36) is connected to the gimbal mounting base plate (33) via three sets of shock-absorbing springs (35). The three sets of springs are evenly distributed at 120°, and the stiffness coefficient of each set of springs is K=0.5N / mm. The horizontal rotary table integrates a stepper motor, which can achieve 360° continuous rotation with a rotation accuracy of 0.1°. The pitch bracket (37) is a U-shaped aluminum alloy casting, which is connected to the horizontal rotary table via a rotating shaft. The pitch angle range is -90° to +90°. The camera mounting base (38) is connected to the pitch bracket via quick-release buckles (32). The quick-release buckles are spring pin structures, which can be released by pressing, facilitating the quick replacement of the camera module. A binocular camera (31) with a resolution of 1920×1080 and a frame rate of 30fps is mounted on the camera mounting bracket (38).

[0023] A ring-shaped LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation device (4) is arranged around the lens end of the camera mounting base (38). The ring-shaped LED light board (41) is a ring-shaped PCB board with an outer diameter of 80mm and an inner diameter of 40mm. Twelve white LED beads are evenly distributed on it, with a single power of 1W, a total power of 12W, and a color temperature of 5500K. A light-transmitting protective cover (44) is provided on the outside of the LED light board. The material is a 3mm thick transparent polycarbonate plate. There are 6 heat dissipation fins (42) on each side of the camera mounting base. Each fin is 80mm×30mm×2mm in size and made of aluminum alloy 6063. The fin spacing is 5mm. The heat dissipation fins are tightly attached to the outer wall of the camera mounting base through a thermal grease layer (43). The thermal conductivity of the thermal grease is 1.5W / (m·K). An NTC thermistor-type temperature controller (45) is provided at the end of the heat sink fins. When the fin temperature exceeds 45°C, the temperature controller outputs a signal to reduce the LED drive current to 50% of the rated value; when the temperature exceeds 60°C, the LED power supply is turned off. In addition, a brightness adjustment knob (46) is provided to manually adjust the LED brightness.

[0024] Example 2 This embodiment is basically the same in structure as Embodiment 1, except that the spring stiffness coefficients of the spring columns (114) are different. In this embodiment, the spring stiffness coefficients of the three sets of spring columns are K1=1.5N / mm (front end), K2=2.0N / mm (middle), and K2=2.5N / mm (rear end), forming a stiffness distribution that is softer at the front and harder at the rear, in order to adapt to the uneven weight distribution between the battery compartment (13) and the control compartment (14). The test results show that after adopting a non-uniform stiffness spring distribution, at a driving speed of 0.5m / s, the vertical vibration acceleration at the gimbal decreases from 0.8g to 0.3g, a decrease of 62.5%.

[0025] Example 3 This embodiment is basically the same in structure as Embodiment 1, except that the telescopic column adopts an electric lifting method. The lower end of the inner cylinder is connected to a screw nut, and the outer cylinder is equipped with a ball screw driven by a stepper motor. The stepper motor is controlled by the main controller (5) in the control cabin. The lifting stroke is 400mm, the lifting speed is 10mm / s, and the positioning accuracy is 0.5mm. This solution can realize remote control of the camera height and is suitable for unattended automated inspection scenarios.

[0026] Performance data comparison The performance comparison between this invention and existing products is shown in the table below: (1) Image blur rate: The present invention has a blur rate of 2.3%, while the existing product has a blur rate of 6.1%, representing an improvement of 62%; (2) Gimbal assembly / disassembly time: This invention takes 3 minutes, while existing products take 15 minutes, representing an 80% improvement; (3) Camera height adjustment range: 200-600mm in this invention, while existing products have a fixed height; (4) Temperature rise of camera during continuous operation: The temperature rise of the present invention is 8°C, while that of the existing product is 23°C, which is an improvement of 65%.

Claims

1. A visual inspection robot, characterized in that, It includes a mobile chassis (1), a telescopic column (2), a gimbal assembly (3), and a ring-shaped LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation device (4); the lower end of the telescopic column (2) is fixedly connected to the mobile chassis (1), the gimbal assembly (3) is detachably installed on the upper end of the telescopic column (2) by a quick-release buckle (32), and the ring-shaped LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation device (4) is arranged around the camera mounting base (38) of the gimbal assembly (3).

2. The visual inspection robot according to claim 1, characterized in that: The mobile chassis (1) includes an upper cover plate (111), a middle frame (113), a lower base plate (115), multiple sets of spring columns (114), and an independent suspension arm (116). A shock-absorbing rubber pad (112) is provided between the upper cover plate (111) and the middle frame (113). The middle frame (113) and the lower base plate (115) are connected by the multiple sets of spring columns (114). One end of the independent suspension arm (116) is hinged to the lower base plate (115), and the other end is connected to the drive wheel (11).

3. The visual inspection robot according to claim 2, characterized in that: Each set of spring columns (114) includes a sleeve (1141), a spring (1142), and a guide rod (1143); the spring (1142) is disposed inside the sleeve (1141), and the guide rod (1143) passes through the spring (1142) and is respectively connected to the middle frame (113) and the lower base plate (115).

4. The visual inspection robot according to claim 1, characterized in that: The gimbal assembly (3) includes a gimbal mounting base plate (33), a T-shaped guide rail (34), three sets of shock-absorbing springs (35), a horizontal rotary table (36), a pitch bracket (37), and a camera mounting base (38). The T-shaped guide rail (34) is disposed on the upper surface of the gimbal mounting base plate (33). The horizontal rotary table (36) is connected to the gimbal mounting base plate (33) through the three sets of shock-absorbing springs (35). The pitch bracket (37) is rotatably connected to the horizontal rotary table (36). The camera mounting base (38) is detachably connected to the pitch bracket (37) through the quick-release buckle (32).

5. The visual inspection robot according to claim 1, characterized in that: The telescopic column (2) includes an outer cylinder (22), an inner cylinder (23), a limiting hole (24), and a locking knob (21); the outer cylinder (22) is provided with a plurality of equally spaced limiting holes (24) along the axial direction, the inner cylinder (23) is slidably sleeved inside the outer cylinder (22), and the locking knob (21) passes through the limiting hole (24) of the outer cylinder (22) and abuts against the outer wall of the inner cylinder (23).

6. The visual inspection robot according to claim 5, characterized in that: The outer wall of the outer cylinder (22) is provided with a cable tray (27) extending along the axial direction. The cross-section of the cable tray (27) is U-shaped and is used to accommodate the cable connecting the gimbal assembly (3) and the internal control cabin (14) of the mobile chassis (1).

7. The visual inspection robot according to claim 1, characterized in that: The annular LED supplementary lighting and heat dissipation device (4) includes an annular LED light plate (41), multiple heat dissipation fins (42), a thermally conductive silicone grease layer (43), and a temperature controller (45). The annular LED light plate (41) is arranged around the outer periphery of the camera mounting base (38). The multiple heat dissipation fins (42) are arranged parallel to each other along the longitudinal direction of the camera mounting base (38) and are attached to the outer wall of the camera mounting base (38) through the thermally conductive silicone grease layer (43). The temperature controller (45) is located at the end of the heat dissipation fins (42).

8. The visual inspection robot according to claim 7, characterized in that: The outer side of the ring-shaped LED light panel (41) is provided with a light-transmitting protective cover (44), which is made of transparent polycarbonate and is arranged in a ring around the lens end of the camera mounting base (38).

9. The visual inspection robot according to claim 7, characterized in that: The temperature controller (45) is an NTC thermistor type temperature controller. The signal output terminal of the temperature controller (45) is connected to the driving circuit of the ring LED light board (41) and is used to adjust the power supply current of the LED beads according to the temperature of the heat sink fins (42) so that the working temperature of the LED beads is kept below 45°C.

10. The visual inspection robot according to claim 1, characterized in that: The mobile chassis (1) also includes a battery compartment (13) and a control compartment (14). The battery compartment (13) and the control compartment (14) are respectively located on both sides of the mobile chassis (1). The control compartment (14) is equipped with a main controller (5). The main controller (5) is electrically connected to the drive module (51), the navigation module (52), the vision processing module (53), and the communication module (54).

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