Biologically Inspired Adhesion based Surface Climbing Robots

Abstract

Climbing robots can perform many tasks inaccessible to other robots or humans such as inspection, repair, cleaning, surveillance, and exploration. This paper presents and discusses the design, fabrication, and evaluation of two novel bio-inspired climbing robots. Both are inspired by the locomotion of Geckos, a highly skilled natural climber. They are developed for terrestrial and extra-terrestrial environments, and their kinematics is inspired by the Geckos’ gait. The first relatively large robot actuated by conventional motors is designed to operate at both in Earth and space scenarios. The second robot, whose motion is controlled using shape memory alloy actuators and size can be miniaturized to few centimeters scale, is designed for terrestrial applications. Preliminary prototypes of these robots are developed, demonstrated, and evaluated by steep and flat acrylic surface climbing tests. Current robots can successfully climb up to 65 ° slopes at 2 cm/sec speeds.