Minimal power control of a miniature climbing robot

This paper presents some salient features of a miniature climbing robot in reducing power consumption. First, the robot uses under-actuated mechanical structure which minimizes the number of motors and thereby reduces the robot size, weight and power usage. Second, an optimal control law is adopted in the foot landing control which minimizes energy used to vacuum the suction foot. Third, a DSP-based embedded control system is designed which minimizes the number of components and exploits the low power features of the DSP controller. Experiments are conducted which demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods.