Design and Analysis of a Bionic Attachment Module for Complex Surfaces

摘要

Existing attachment modules have insufficient com-pliance with curved surfaces, which limits the use of wall-climbing robots. This paper proposes and develops a bionic three-toe attachment module for complex surfaces, which has good active compliance and can significantly improve the compliance of wall climbing robots on surfaces. Based on the study of tree frogs and dexterous hands, this paper designs the structure of the bionic three-toe attachment module and carries out the related kinematic analysis. Utilizing dexterity as an evaluation index, the relationship between singularity point, isotropic point, and linkage length is further revealed. Finally, the excellent performance of the bionic three-toed attachment module in terms of active compliance and dexterity is verified through attachment compliance experiments on complex surfaces. If this module is used in the foot of wall-climbing robots, it will make the wall-climbing robots no longer limited to planar and small curvature surfaces and will be able to attach stably even in complex continuous variable curvature environments, such as the surface of the aircraft skin, the surface of the wind turbine blades, and the body of high-speed railways.