Abstract:

Biped climbing robots have become an important class of climbing robots, where the reliability of pole-grasping with the end grippers is a basic and critical requirement for safe climbing, and the analysis of grasping reliability is a key issue. A biped pole-climbing robot, the Climbot developed is first introduced. The problem of force-closure of grasping with the robot climbing on a round pole is presented and proved. The dynamic loads generated onto the base gripper when the robot climbs in different climbing gaits are analyzed, and the balance models are proposed, respectively, in 2D and 3D cases. Based on these models, the effect of geometric parameters of the gripper on grasping performance is analyzed. The correctness of the models and effectiveness of the corresponding analysis are verified with several grasping experiments. The results are helpful and valuable to gripper design for biped climbing robots and guarantee of grasp reliability.

Key words: biped pole-climbing robot, force balance model, force-closure, grasping safety, gripper design