DESIGN AND CONTROL OF A BIO-INSPIRED CLIMBING ROBOT

Autonomous climbing on vertical surfaces has been a major challenge in research of climbing robot. Performance of a climbing robot depends on controlling of joint actuators and adhesion force. This paper undergoes design and control of bio-inspired climbing robot intended for ferromagnetic surfaces. This robot is a serial chain robot, which consists of four identical segmented sections connected through joints. Each joint is equipped with a servomotor and two electromagnets are provided at two ends. Magnets are energized by switching command and no extra control unit is needed. A simple gait planning has been designed for stepping like climbing. Robot kinematics and dynamics are formulated and joint orientation function is implemented to control joint actuation of the non-linear system. PID control is implemented to track the desired position of joints. An experimental robot prototype is fabricated and a mathematical model is validated through test data.