Affiliations: [a] Department of Electrical Engineering, The City College, City University of New York, NY 10031, USA | [b] School of Information Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China 110004 | [c] Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University, MI 48824, USA | [d] Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Grand Valley State University, MI 49401, USA | [e] Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, San Diego State University, CA 92182, USA | [f] Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, UT 84112, USA | [g] Department of Mechanical Engineering, Michigan State University, MI 48824, USA
Abstract: This paper describes the design, modeling, control and motion planning analysis of a climbing microrobot. The microrobot is the smallest of bipedal robot found in the literature which is able to climb walls, walk on ceilings, crawl through pipes, and transit between two inclined planes. The underactuated structure contributes to the small size and light weight of the robot. The kinematic model in different locomotion modes is derived. The DSP-based embedded controller is presented. A hybrid configuration space is proposed to incorporate the continuous configuration space with discrete motion status space. Based on the motion pattern analysis, a motion planning approach is developed to generate an optimal collision-free path and a feasible motion sequence to allow the robot to travel along the path. Experimental and simulation results demonstrate the effective performance of the microrobot system.
