Design and Development of Ladder Climbing Robot

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a ladder climbing robot prototype. The development of the prototype includes constructing the basic software and hardware for the robot. The robot controller is designed using Arduino Mega 2560 software implemented in Arduino IDE with C programming. The hardware development involves constructing the main chassis and climbing arm with servomotor, DC geared motor and motor driver. An algorithm to climb ladder is developed with application of Infrared (IR) sensor and ultrasonic sensors. Significantly, the robot prototype is tested on ladders of different rung spacing. In the future, a base with wheels will be constructed for the robot to carry load and move on ground with obstacle avoidance capability and side grippers will be constructed to improve climbing performance of the robot on vertical ladder; this project will contribute to future research on similar topics.