Utility pipes on the façades of high-rise buildings are susceptible to the harsh environment. Damaged pipes are conventionally replaced manually, which is inconvenient to customers and leads to material wastage and worker safety concerns. This work proposes a different approach by developing a robotic solution in a preventive maintenance manner. The entire robotic system consists of a service robot working at heights and a remote ground station. This paper presents the work process and the major robotic modules: a manipulator arm, a two-finger gripper with force feedback, a sparkless polishing tool with contact feedback, a painting tool with a dip replenish mechanism, and on-board visual monitoring. Field deployment test results validate the effectiveness of the concept. The proposed system saves time from eliminating scaffold preparation setup and reduces material wastage compared with conventional methods. The developed robotic system and process have a potential application in relevant high-rise utility operations.

高层建筑立面上的公用管道容易受到恶劣环境的影响。损坏的管道通常是手动更换的，这给客户带来不便，并导致材料浪费和工人安全隐患。这项工作通过以预防性维护的方式开发机器人解决方案，提出了一种不同的方法。整个机器人系统由高空工作的服务机器人和远程地面站组成。本文介绍了工作过程和主要的机器人模块：机械手，带力反馈的两指抓爪，带接触反馈的无火花抛光工具，带浸入补充机构的涂装工具以及车载视觉监控。现场部署测试结果验证了该概念的有效性。与传统方法相比，所提出的系统节省了省去脚手架准备工作的时间，并减少了材料浪费。开发的机器人系统和过程在相关的高层公用事业运营中具有潜在的应用。