Design of a wall-climbing hexapod for advanced maneuvers

Abstract

A hexapod designed for wall climbing with a body joint and six 3-DOF legs can perform complex maneuvers such as sharp turns, making both interior and exterior transitions between vertical and horizontal surfaces, and traversing obstacles on both surfaces. This paper presents work toward the design and construction of the hexapod DIGbot, named for its utilization of distributed inward gripping (DIG) to generate adhesive forces. The biologically-inspired DIG approach allows robots to climb on surfaces of any orientation with respect gravity, including ceilings, or in zero gravity environments.