ClimbLab: MATLAB Simulation Platform for Legged Climbing Robotics

Abstract

This paper presents an open-sourced MATLAB simulation and analysis platform dedicated to legged climbing robots. This simulator enables the design of any limbed robotic system as an articulated multi-body with a floating base and simulates it walking and climbing in an arbitrary environment. The main variable environmental parameters are inclination, gravity, and ground stiffness, and any point cloud can be installed as the terrain map. Furthermore, the simulator employs a rigid body dynamics engine. This paper first describes the simulator structure, and the computational flow and next presents the representative simulation examples where quadrupedal robots assumed gripping on the wall or climbing on the steep slope.