Climbing
Related papers: 20
About
Climbing in robotics refers to the capability of robots to ascend, traverse, and descend vertical, inverted, or inclined surfaces—including walls, poles, stairs, and complex structures—that lie beyond the reach of conventional wheeled or ground-based platforms. Researchers draw heavily from biological systems such as geckos, cockroaches, and insects, translating natural adhesion and locomotion strategies into engineered solutions. Key adhesion mechanisms include dry fibrillar microstructures mimicking gecko toe pads, compliant microspine arrays for rough surfaces, suction, electroadhesion, and programmable hydrogel adhesives. Locomotion platforms range from rigid hexapods and quadrupeds to soft millimeter-scale robots, each tailored to specific surface types and payload requirements. Climbing robots are deployed for infrastructure inspection, maintenance of vertical structures, search and rescue, and surveillance in environments hazardous or inaccessible to humans. The field matters because enabling robots to reliably navigate three-dimensional vertical environments dramatically expands their operational workspace, unlocking applications in construction, aerospace, energy, and disaster response where human access is dangerous, costly, or physically impossible.
Top Researchers
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Top Cited Papers
Soft wall-climbing robots
Guoying Gu, Jiang Zou, Ruike Renee Zhao, Xuanhe Zhao, Xiangyang Zhu
Citations: 663 • 2018
Biologically inspired climbing with a hexapedal robot
Matthew Spenko, G. Clark Haynes, J. A. Saunders, Mark R. Cutkosky, A.A. Rizzi, Robert J. Full, D. E. Koditschek
Citations: 425 • 2008
Tail-assisted pitch control in lizards, robots and dinosaurs
Thomas Libby, Talia Y. Moore, Evan Chang-Siu, Deborah Li, Daniel J. Cohen, Ardian Jusufi, Robert J. Full
Citations: 330 • 2012
Scaling Hard Vertical Surfaces with Compliant Microspine Arrays
Alan T. Asbeck, Sangbae Kim, Mark R. Cutkosky, William R. Provancher, Michele Lanzetta
Citations: 322 • 2006
Electroadhesive robots—wall climbing robots enabled by a novel, robust, and electrically controllable adhesion technology
Harsha Prahlad, Ron Pelrine, Scott D. Stanford, John Marlow, Roy Kornbluh
Citations: 274 • 2008
Climbing robots for maintenance and inspections of vertical structures—A survey of design aspects and technologies
Daniel Schmidt, Karsten Berns
Citations: 270 • 2013
Whole body adhesion: hierarchical, directional and distributed control of adhesive forces for a climbing robot
Sangbae Kim, Matthew Spenko, Barrett Heyneman, Virgilio Mattoli, Mark R. Cutkosky
Citations: 255 • 2007
Active tails enhance arboreal acrobatics in geckos
Ardian Jusufi, Daniel I. Goldman, Shai Revzen, Robert J. Full
Citations: 250 • 2008
Waalbot II: Adhesion Recovery and Improved Performance of a Climbing Robot using Fibrillar Adhesives
Michael Murphy, Casey Kute, Yiğit Mengüç, Metin Sitti
Citations: 242 • 2010
Review article: locomotion systems for ground mobile robots in unstructured environments
Luca Bruzzone, Giuseppe Quaglia
Citations: 237 • 2012
Inverted and vertical climbing of a quadrupedal microrobot using electroadhesion
S. de Rivaz, Benjamin Goldberg, Neel Doshi, Kaushik Jayaram, Jack G. Zhou, Robert J. Wood
Citations: 237 • 2018
A survey of climbing robots: Locomotion and adhesion
Baeksuk Chu, Kyungmo Jung, Chang-Soo Han, Daehie Hong
Citations: 233 • 2010
Innovative gait robot for the repetitive practice of floor walking and stair climbing up and down in stroke patients
Stefan Hesse, Andreas Waldner, Christopher Tomelleri
Citations: 226 • 2010
Gecko Inspired Surface Climbing Robots
Carlo Menon, Michael Murphy, Metin Sitti
Citations: 222 • 2005
Dynamics of rapid vertical climbing in cockroaches reveals a template
Daniel I. Goldman, Tao S. Chen, Daniel Dudek, Robert J. Full
Citations: 219 • 2006
Gait synthesis for the SD-2 biped robot to climb sloping surface
Yuan F. Zheng, Jia Shen
Citations: 214 • 1990
Soft Rod-Climbing Robot Inspired by Winding Locomotion of Snake
Bing Liao, Hongbin Zang, Mingyang Chen, Yunjie Wang, Xin Lang, Nana Zhu, Zheng Yang, Yan Yi
Citations: 205 • 2020
SpinybotII: climbing hard walls with compliant microspines
Sangbae Kim, Alan T. Asbeck, Mark R. Cutkosky, William R. Provancher
Citations: 204 • 2006
Wireless soft millirobots for climbing three-dimensional surfaces in confined spaces
Yingdan Wu, Xiaoguang Dong, Jae‐Kang Kim, Chunxiang Wang, Metin Sitti
Citations: 203 • 2022
Highly mobile and robust small quadruped robots
Jeremy Morrey, B. Larribrecht, Andrew D. Horchler, Roy E. Ritzmann, Roger D. Quinn
Citations: 196 • 2004