Inspection of large tile walls for high-rise buildings based on a mechatronic mobile system

A purpose-built wall climbing system has been constructed for carrying out inspection or cleaning tasks at high-rise buildings. The system is developed not only for scanning external wall surfaces of public rental housing estates to detect defects, in particular debonded tiles, using non-destructive testing (NDT) tools but also for supporting cleaning and other services. The robotic system is able to move against the wall surfaces with a special mechanism to keep the robot in safe and effective operation. The mechatronic design and implementation of the inspection system are reported in particular in this paper.