A climbing robot with minimal structure

Abstract

The wall-climbing robot 'Zigzag' is one of a succession of mobile robots devised at Portsmouth Polytechnic. Zigzag has but one degree of freedom and strictly has no legs at all. It is controlled at present by direct command from a desk-top computer; when microcontrollers are introduced, each processor will control an entire Zigzag and a supervising microcomputer will direct a team of these robots. The very simplicity of the machine should speed its application and exploitation for tasks including painting, inspection and maintenance of vertical or sloping surfaces. >