— A hexapod designed for wall climbing with a body joint and 3-DOF legs can perform complex maneuvers such as sharp turns, making both interior and exterior transitions between vertical and horizontal surfaces, and traversing obstacles on the vertical surface. This paper presents work toward the design and construction of the hexapod DIGbot, named for its utilization of Distributed Inward Gripping (DIG) to generate adhesive forces. DIG allows robots to climb on surfaces of any orientation with respect gravity, including ceilings, or in zero gravity environments.
Luther R. Palmer, Eric D. Diller, Roger D. Quinn