Gait Programming for Multi-Legged Robot Climbing on Walls and Ceilings

Abstract

At present, the first-step surface adhesion of most wall-climbing robots depends on some outside force, which is provided either by human operators or by such a special-purpose mechanical device as a manipulator. This not only restricts many special applications of wall-climbing robots. But also makes it impossible for the robot to fulfil automatic operations continually on walls with surface intersections. With the steady expansion of possible application areas of wall-climbing robots, it is natural to make higher expectations on the robots' performance, i.e., automated transit walking ability from ground to wall, from one wall to another, or from wall to ceiling. Japanese researchers take the lead to explore that kind of wall-climbing robot in recent years. The mechanism configurations of the two prototypes developed fall into the deformable framework category However, the above two robot mechanisms have some major disadvantages on mobility, irregular obstacle negotiation and on wall shape adaptability, because they do not possess independently actuated leg mechanism. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that multi-legged wall-climbing mechanism is a better alternative [Qian,1993]. Compared with other forms of mobile robot, multi-legged robot is a suitable option to realize transition motions. Each independently-driven leg's foothold can be selected in order to adapt complicated environment.