Design of a Bio-inspired Dynamical Vertical Climbing Robot

Abstract— This paper reviews a template for dynamical climbing originating in biology, explores its stability properties in a numerical model, and presents empirical data from a physical prototype as evidence of the feasibility of adapting the dynamics of the template to robot that runs vertically upward. ntly proposed pendulous climbing model abstracts remarkable similarities in dynamic wall scaling behavior exhibited by radically different animal species. The present paper’s first contribution summarizes a numerical study of this model to hypothesize that these animals’ apparently wasteful commitments to lateral oscillations may be justified by a significant gain in the dynamical stability and, hence, the robustness of their resulting climbing capability. The paper’s second contribution documents the design and offers preliminary empirical data arising from a physical instantiation of this model. Notwithstanding the substantial differences between the proposed bio-inspired...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: RSS
• Authors: Jonathan Clark, Daniel Goldman, Pei-Chun Lin, Goran Lynch, Tao Chen, Haldun Komsuoglu, Robert J. Full, Daniel E. Koditschek
• Keywords: Dynamical Climbing, Paper’s first Contribution, Pendulous Climbing Model, Robotics, RSS 2007