Research on Motion Trajectory Correction Method for Wall-Climbing Robots Based on External Visual Localization System

To reduce manual operation and enhance the intelligence of the high-altitude maintenance wall-climbing robot during its operation, path planning and autonomous navigation need to be implemented. Due to non-uniform magnetic adhesion between the wall-climbing robot and the steel plate, often caused by variations in steel thickness or surface pitting, the wall-climbing robot may experience motion deviations and deviate from its planned trajectory. In order to obtain the actual deviation from the expected trajectory, it is necessary to accurately locate the wall-climbing robot. This allows for the generation of precise control signals, enabling trajectory correction and ensuring high-precision autonomous navigation. Therefore, this paper proposes an external visual localization system based on a pan-tilt laser tracker unit. The system utilizes a zoom camera to track an AprilTag marker and drives the pan-tilt platform, while a laser rangefinder provides high-accuracy distance measurement. The robot's three-dimensional (3D) pose is ultimately calculated by fusing the visual and ranging data. However, due to the limited tracking speed of the pan-tilt mechanism relative to the robot's movement, we introduce an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to robustly predict the robot's true spatial coordinates. The robot's three-dimensional coordinates are periodically compared with the predefined route coordinates to calculate the deviation. This comparison generates closed-loop control signals for the robot's movement direction and speed. Finally, based on the LoRa communication protocol, closed-loop control of the robot's movement direction and speed are achieved through the upper-level computer, ensuring that the robot returns to the predefined track. Extensive comparative experiments demonstrate that the localization system achieves stable localization with an accuracy better than 0.025 m on a 6 m × 2.5 m steel structure surface. Based on this high-precision positioning and motion correction, the robot's motion deviation is kept within 0.1 m, providing a reliable pose reference for precise motion control and high-reliability operation in complex structural environments.