The Problem of Adhesion Methods and Locomotion Mechanism Development for Wall-Climbing Robots

This review considers a problem in the development of mobile robot adhesion methods with vertical surfaces and the appropriate locomotion mechanism design. The evolution of adhesion methods for wall-climbing robots (based on friction, magnetic forces, air pressure, electrostatic adhesion, molecular forces, rheological properties of fluids and their combinations) and their locomotion principles (wheeled, tracked, walking, sliding framed and hybrid) is studied. Wall-climbing robots are classified according to the applications, adhesion methods and locomotion mechanisms. The advantages and disadvantages of various adhesion methods and locomotion mechanisms are analyzed in terms of mobility, noiselessness, autonomy and energy efficiency. Focus is placed on the physical and technical aspects of the adhesion methods and the possibility of combining adhesion and locomotion methods

Rapid inversion: running animals and robots swing like a pendulum under ledges.

Escaping from predators often demands that animals rapidly negotiate complex environments. The smallest animals attain relatively fast speeds with high frequency leg cycling, wing flapping or body undulations, but absolute speeds are slow compared to larger animals. Instead, small animals benefit from the advantages of enhanced maneuverability in part due to scaling. Here, we report a novel behavior in small, legged runners that may facilitate their escape by disappearance from predators. We video recorded cockroaches and geckos rapidly running up an incline toward a ledge, digitized their motion and created a simple model to generalize the behavior. Both species ran rapidly at 12-15 body lengths-per-second toward the ledge without braking, dove off the ledge, attached their feet by claws like a grappling hook, and used a pendulum-like motion that can exceed one meter-per-second to swing around to an inverted position under the ledge, out of sight. We discovered geckos in Southeast Asia can execute this escape behavior in the field. Quantification of these acrobatic behaviors provides biological inspiration toward the design of small, highly mobile search-and-rescue robots that can assist us during natural and human-made disasters. We report the first steps toward this new capability in a small, hexapedal robot

A simple upper limb rehabilitation trainer

Stroke is a leading cause of disability which can affect shoulder and elbow movements which are necessary for reaching activities in numerous daily routines. To maximize functional recovery of these movements, stroke survivors undergo rehabilitation sessions under the supervision of physiotherapists in healthcare settings. Unfortunately, these sessions may be limited due to staff constraints and are often labor-intensive. There are numerous robotic devices which have been developed to overcome this problem. However, the high cost of these robots is a major concern as it limits their cost-benefit profiles, thus impeding large scale implementation. This paper presents a simple and low cost interactive training module for the purpose of upper limb rehabilitation. The module, which uses a conventional mouse integrated with a small DC motor to generate vibration instead of any robotic actuator, is integrated with a game-like virtual reality system intended for training shoulder and elbow movements. Three games for the module were developed as training platforms, namely: Triangle, Square and Circle games. Results from five healthy study subjects showed that their performances improved with practice and time taken to complete the Triangle game was the fastest of the three

Information-theoretic measures as a generic approach to human-robot interaction : Application in CORBYS project

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/AuthorThe objective of the CORBYS project is to design and implement a robot control architecture that allows the integration of high-level cognitive control modules, such as a semantically-driven self-awareness module and a cognitive framework for anticipation of, and synergy with, human behaviour based on biologically-inspired information-theoretic principles. CORBYS aims to provide a generic control architecture to benefit a wide range of applications where robots work in synergy with humans, ranging from mobile robots such as robotic followers to gait rehabilitation robots. The behaviour of the two demonstrators, used for validating this architecture, will each be driven by a combination of task specific algorithms and generic cognitive algorithms. In this paper we focus on the generic algorithms based on information theoryFinal Accepted Versio

Design and Development of Climbing Robotic Systems for Automated Inspection of Steel Structures and Bridges

Steel structures are indispensable parts of modern civilization, with typical civil infrastructures including bridges, wind turbines, electric towers, oil rigs, ships, and submarines, all made of steel. These structures require frequent maintenance to ensure safety and longevity. Steel bridges are the most challenging architectures due totheir complexity and height. Most inspections are conducted manually by professional human inspectors with special devices to inspect visible damages and defects on or inside these structures. However, this procedure is usually highly time-consuming, costly, and risky. Automated solutions are desired to address this problem. However, arduous engineering is delaying progress. A complete system needs to deal with three main problems: (1) locomotive performance for the high complexity of steel bridges, including differential curvatures, transitions between beams, and obstacles; (2) data collection capability, inclusive of visible and invisible damages, in-depth information such as vibration, coat, and material thickness, etc.; and (3) working conditions made up of gust winds. To achieve such a complete system, this dissertation presents novel developments of inspection-climbing robots. Five different robot versions are designed to find the simplest and most effective configuration as well as control manner. Our approach started with (1) a transformable tank-like robot integrated with a haptic device and ii two natural-inspired locomotion, (2) a roller chain-like robot, (3) a hybrid worming mobile robot, (4) a multi-directional bicycle robot, and (5) an omni-directional climbing Robot, identified as the most potential solution for automated steel bridge inspection. For each robotic development, detailed mechanical analysis frameworks are presented. Both lab tests and field deployments of these robotic systems have been conducted to validate the proposed designs