Design of a milli-scale, biomimetic platform for climbing on a rough surface

Abstract

Small multi-legged animals that can climb vertical walls with a rough surface have inspired research on climbing locomotion. Most robots that can climb a rough vertical wall are large and heavy due to the large number of actuators required to produce the complex locomotion. This paper proposes a novel design for a small and lightweight climbing robot that uses a single actuator. To guarantee reliable wall climbing, the contact phase of two tripods should overlap. A quick return leg is designed to enable phase overlap without requiring an extra actuator. Alternating tripods are also designed, and small spines with compliance are modeled based on the pseudo-rigid-body model. Layer-based fabrication is used to reduce weight. The resulting biomimetic platform is 10cm long and 10.8g in weight and can climb up a near-vertical brick wall at a rate of 5.57mm/sec.