Flippy: A soft, autonomous climber with simple sensing and control

Melinda Malley, Michael Rubenstein, Radhika Nagpal

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

29 Scopus citations

Abstract

Climbing robots have many potential applications including maintenance, monitoring, search and rescue, and self-assembly. While numerous climbing designs have been investigated, most are limited to stiff components. Flippy (Fig. 1) is a small, flipping biped robot with a soft, flexible body and on-board power and control. Due to its built-in compliance, flipping gait, and corkscrew gripper, it can autonomously climb up and down surfaces held at any angle relative to gravity and transition from one surface to another, without complex sensing or control. In this paper, we demonstrate the robot's ability to flip consistently over a flat Velcro surface and 2D Velcro track, where it reliably climbs vertically, upside down and back to a flat surface, completing all the interior transitions in-between.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationIROS 2017 - IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages6533-6540
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781538626825
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 13 2017
Externally publishedYes
Event2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2017 - Vancouver, Canada
Duration: Sep 24 2017Sep 28 2017

Publication series

NameIEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
Volume2017-September
ISSN (Print)2153-0858
ISSN (Electronic)2153-0866

Conference

Conference2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2017
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityVancouver
Period9/24/179/28/17

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Software
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Science Applications

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