Proposal of a Square-Duct Cleaning Mechanism Using a Noncircular Brush with a Planetary Gear Mechanism: Brush-Trajectory Design and Simulation

In this paper, we propose a grease-cleaning mechanism for cleaning the walls of a square duct. The purpose of this study is to develop a robot for cleaning grease in ventilation ducts, which can cause fires in restaurants. In our previous study, we developed a cleaning model of a brush against grease and demonstrated the cleaning performance depending on the characteristics of the brush. However, a mechanism that can clean grease in a square duct has not yet been investigated. Therefore, we propose a mechanism that can clean grease in a square duct by attaching a noncircular brush fixture to the planetary gear of a planetary gear mechanism by using rotation and revolution. In this study, we modeled the geometry of the brush fixture that enables the rotating cleaning brush to contact the square duct with a constant pressing force. In addition, we modeled the torque required for the implementation of the robot mechanically and simulated the trajectory of the brush fixture on the coordinates when it was actually driven. From the simulation results, we demonstrated that the designed brush fixture can realize an approximate square trajectory without deviating from the wall surface.