Design and Control of OWL — [O]ffboard [W]ashbot with Hydro-powered, Friction-based [L]ocomotion
Wei Hien Ng, Shawndy Michael Lee, Emmanuel Tang, Shaohui Foong · 2025
This paper presents a novel hydro-powered collaborative twin scrubber aerial cleaning robot that merges the advantages of aerial mobility and ground-based contact cleaning for safe and efficient surface maintenance. Inspired by impulse turbine principles, the system utilizes cleaning fluid for propulsion, eliminating multiple mechanical actuators and reducing its electronic footprint. High-velocity fluid ejection generates torque to drive lightweight scrubber pads for effective contact cleaning. The paper details the robot’s design, dynamic modeling, and a control strategy enabling friction-based locomotion. The proposed model and error-based controller are validated through simulations and experiments, demonstrating the feasibility of deploying a passively driven scrubber robot for planar surface cleaning.