Stair Climbing using a compliant modular robot
17 Dec 2015-pp 3332-3339
TL;DR: This work extends the functionality of a novel compliant modular robot to ascend and descend stairs of dimensions that are also typical of an urban setting by equipping the robot's link joints with optimally designed passive spring pairs that resist clockwise and counter clockwise moments generated by the ground during the climbing motion.
Abstract: Stair Climbing is a key functionality desired for robots deployed in Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) scenarios. A novel compliant modular robot was proposed earlier to climb steep and big obstacles. This work extends the functionality of this robot to ascend and descend stairs of dimensions that are also typical of an urban setting. Stair Climbing is realized by equipping the robot's link joints with optimally designed passive spring pairs that resist clockwise and counter clockwise moments generated by the ground during the climbing motion. This 3-module robot is only propelled by wheel actuators. Desirable stair climbing configurations are estimated a-priori and used to obtain the optimal stiffness for springs. Extensive numerical simulation results over different stair configurations are shown. The numerical simulations are corroborated by experimentation using the prototype and its performance is tabulated for different types of surfaces.
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TL;DR: In this article, the concept and parameter design of a robust stair-climbing compliant modular robot, capable of tackling stairs with overhangs, is discussed, along with establishing a concept design, the robust design parameters are set to minimize performance variations.
Abstract: This paper discusses the concept and parameter design of a robust stair-climbing compliant modular robot, capable of tackling stairs with overhangs. Geometry modifications of the periphery of the wheels of our robot helped in tackling overhangs. Along with establishing a concept design, the robust design parameters are set to minimize performance variations. The Grey-based Taguchi method is applied to provide an optimal setting for the design parameters of the robot. The robot prototype is shown to have successfully scaled stairs of varying dimensions, with overhang, thus corroborating the analysis performed.
7 citations
TL;DR: A passive linkage suspension mechanism and tri-star wheels are applied to solve the problems of unclean zones due to failures during overcoming obstacles and the problems through the use of additional actuators based on dynamic simulation considering obstacle encounters.
Abstract: As the demand and market for building maintenance are increasing, automated building facade cleaning has become essential. Robots are replacing human workers because cleaning work on high-rise buildings using gondolas can be dangerous. Several facade cleaning robots have been developed for climbing, and practical knowledge to clean the facade is being adopted in their cleaning devices. In this study, a passive linkage suspension mechanism and tri-star wheels are applied to solve the problems of unclean zones due to failures during overcoming obstacles and the problems through the use of additional actuators. Various mechanism models have been introduced and their performances have been compared based on dynamic simulation considering obstacle encounters.
6 citations
Cites background from "Stair Climbing using a compliant mo..."
...Additionally, there is a modular robot whose compliant components are situated on the joints between the modules [11]....
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TL;DR: This paper documents autonomous multi-floor stairwell ascent by a legged robot made possible through empirically deployed sequential composition of several reactive controllers, with perceptually triggered transitions.
Abstract: This paper documents autonomous multi-floor stairwell ascent by a legged robot. This is made possible through empirically deployed sequential composition of several reactive controllers, with perceptually triggered transitions. This composition relies on simplified assumptions regarding the robot’s sensory capabilities, its level of mobility, and the environment it operates in. The discrepancies between these assumptions and the physical reality are capably handled by the intrinsic motor competence of the robot. This behavior is implemented on the legged RHex platform and experiments spanning 10 different stairwells with various challenges are conducted.
5 citations
01 Oct 2018
TL;DR: The design is small and simple enough to potentially be ruggedized as a stair-climbing throwbot, akin to the Recon Scout (but able to climb up stairs) for reconnaissance in military and homeland security applications.
Abstract: This paper presents a (patent-pending) small, quasi-static, minimal-complexity Stair Climbing Robot (SCR). The vehicle design is given simply by adding a third motor to a (Segway-like) Mobile Inverted Pendulum (MIP), enabling it to maneuver up stairs, leveraging feedback control, by planting it's “foot” onto the ground in front of the next step, lifting the chassis/wheel assembly up it's own “leg”, leaning over onto the top of the next step, self uprighting, and repeating for the following step(s). Fore/aft stabilization during leg balancing is given by using the MIP drive wheels as reaction wheels, while left/right stability is given by the width of the foot itself. The design is small and simple enough to potentially be ruggedized as a stair-climbing throwbot, akin to the Recon Scout (but able to climb up stairs) for reconnaissance in military and homeland security applications.
4 citations
Cites background from "Stair Climbing using a compliant mo..."
...There are many examples of multi-wheeled stair-climbing robots that have passive [3] or active climbing mechanisms [6][5]....
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TL;DR: The stability analysis shows that the control method can achieve a stable stair-climbing motion and the result indicates that the robot can climb the stairs, and the required time for climbing a single step is approximately 1.8 s.
Abstract: In this study, the control of a two-wheeled stair-climbing inverted pendulum robot and its climbing motion are analyzed and discussed. The robot adopts a state-feedback controller with a feed-forwa...
4 citations
References
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07 Aug 2002
TL;DR: An open loop controller is described that enables a small robot to reliably climb a wide range of regular, full-size stairs with no operator input during stair climbing.
Abstract: RHex is a hexapod with compliant legs and only six actuated degrees of freedom. Its ability to traverse highly fractured and unstable terrain, as well ascend and descend a particular flight of stairs has already been documented. In this paper, we describe an open loop controller that enables our small robot (length: 51 cm, width: 20 cm, height: 12.7 cm, leg length: 16 cm) to reliably climb a wide range of regular, full-size stairs with no operator input during stair climbing. Experimental data of energy efficiency in a form of specific resistance during stair climbing is given. The results presented in this paper are based on a new half circle leg design that implements a passive, effective leg length change.
207 citations
"Stair Climbing using a compliant mo..." refers background in this paper
...Several kinds of robots that are deployed in urban settings, such as Bipedal Robots [1], [2], [3], Wheel-Legged systems [4], [5], Segway Robots [6], [7], Tracked [8], [9], [10] and Modular Robots [11], boast of this feature....
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17 Feb 2000
TL;DR: Shrimp as discussed by the authors is a high mobility wheeled rover for uneven terrain off-road that uses passive locomotion concept robot on uneven terrain, and is based on the SHRIMP concept.
Abstract: Keywords: passive locomotion concept robot uneven terrain off-road ; SHRIMP : High Mobility Wheeled Rover Reference LSA-CONF-2000-003View record in Web of Science Project Web Site: http://asl.epfl.ch/research/systems/shrimp/shrimp.php Record created on 2006-12-07, modified on 2016-08-08
156 citations
"Stair Climbing using a compliant mo..." refers background in this paper
...However, except for a few notable ones like Shrimp [13] and an optimally designed Rocker-Bogie [14], there is a dearth of literature on articulated wheeled robots ascending and descending stairs....
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10 Dec 2007
TL;DR: A robust model-based three-dimensional tracking system by programmable graphics hardware to operate online at frame-rate during locomotion of a humanoid robot and recovers the full 6 degree-of- freedom pose of viewable objects relative to the robot.
Abstract: For humanoid robots to fully realize their biped potential in a three-dimensional world and step over, around or onto obstacles such as stairs, appropriate and efficient approaches to execution, planning and perception are required. To this end, we have accelerated a robust model-based three-dimensional tracking system by programmable graphics hardware to operate online at frame-rate during locomotion of a humanoid robot. The tracker recovers the full 6 degree-of- freedom pose of viewable objects relative to the robot. Leveraging the computational resources of the GPU for perception has enabled us to increase our tracker's robustness to the significant camera displacement and camera shake typically encountered during humanoid navigation. We have combined our approach with a footstep planner and a controller capable of adaptively adjusting the height of swing leg trajectories. The resulting integrated perception-planning-action system has allowed an HRP-2 humanoid robot to successfully and rapidly localize, approach and climb stairs, as well as to avoid obstacles during walking.
138 citations
"Stair Climbing using a compliant mo..." refers background in this paper
...Several kinds of robots that are deployed in urban settings, such as Bipedal Robots [1], [2], [3], Wheel-Legged systems [4], [5], Segway Robots [6], [7], Tracked [8], [9], [10] and Modular Robots [11], boast of this feature....
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TL;DR: This paper addresses walking pattern synthesis and sensory feedback control for humanoid stair climbing and the effectiveness of the proposed method was confirmed by walking experiments on a 32-degree-of-freedom humanoid robot.
Abstract: Stable and robust walking in various environments is one of the most important abilities for a humanoid robot. This paper addresses walking pattern synthesis and sensory feedback control for humanoid stair climbing. The proposed stair-climbing gait is formulated to satisfy the environmental constraint, the kinematic constraint, and the stability constraint; the selection of the gait parameters is formulated as a constrained nonlinear optimization problem. The sensory feedback controller is phase dependent and consists of the torso attitude controller, zero moment point compensator, and impact reducer. The online learning scheme of the proposed feedback controller is based on a policy gradient reinforcement learning method, and the learned controller is robust against external disturbance. The effectiveness of our proposed method was confirmed by walking experiments on a 32-degree-of-freedom humanoid robot.
117 citations
"Stair Climbing using a compliant mo..." refers background in this paper
...Several kinds of robots that are deployed in urban settings, such as Bipedal Robots [1], [2], [3], Wheel-Legged systems [4], [5], Segway Robots [6], [7], Tracked [8], [9], [10] and Modular Robots [11], boast of this feature....
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06 Jun 2005
TL;DR: The stairs-climbing process has been divided into riser climbing, riser crossing, and nose line climbing, and robot's mobility has been analyzed for its kinematics and dynamics factor.
Abstract: Stairs-climbing ability is the crucial performance of mobile robot for urban environment mission such as urban search and rescue or urban reconnaissance. The track type mobile mechanism has been widely applied for its advantages such as high stability, easy to control, low terrain pressure, and continuous drive. Stairs-climbing is a complicated process for a tracked mobile robot under kinematics and dynamics constraints. In this paper, the stairs-climbing process has been divided into riser climbing, riser crossing, and nose line climbing. During each climbing process, robot's mobility has been analyzed for its kinematics and dynamics factor. The track velocity and acceleration's influences on riser climbing have been analyzed. And the semiempirical design method of the track grouser and the module length has been provided in riser crossing and nose line climbing correspondingly. Finally, stairs-climbing experiments have been made on the two-module robot in line type, and three-module robot in line type and in triangle type respectively.
93 citations
"Stair Climbing using a compliant mo..." refers background in this paper
...Several kinds of robots that are deployed in urban settings, such as Bipedal Robots [1], [2], [3], Wheel-Legged systems [4], [5], Segway Robots [6], [7], Tracked [8], [9], [10] and Modular Robots [11], boast of this feature....
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