Passive Spine Gripper for Free-Climbing Robot in Extreme Terrain

One of the fields where robots play important roles is the exploration of extreme environments. An extreme environment is where it is difficult for humans to enter, or poses danger to them. Using a remote controlled robot to move through and explore such an environment is a highly effective method for extreme environment exploration. In particular, lunar lava tubes including a steep cliff wall have attracted a great deal of attention from scientific interests and as a future habitat for humans.

So far, we have studied a free-climbing robot that is a quadruped robot with insect-inspired grippers in order to explore steep cliff walls. It moves on the cliff by gripping its surface. I work on particularly development of grippers and trajectory generation of the robot. Dynamics modeling and motion control of this new mobility system is studied with theoretical and experimental approaches. This new mobility will be expected to enhance robotic exploration on extreme environments such as lunar/planetary surfaces and disaster areas.