System design and control framework for an autonomous mobile robot application on predefined ferromagnetic surfaces

Maintenance tasks of ferromagnetic. surfaces present a suitable field for robotic applications. A system and controller software design satisfying the system requirements of an autonomous robotic system moving on a ferromagnetic surface accomplishing several tasks such as crack detection, welding, painting and emergency recovery actions is presented. The controller software developed here is a hierarchical control system based on the RCS Reference Model Architecture. The software shell and selected developed modules of the controller are presented.