Mechanical design and basic analysis of a modular robot with special climbing and manipulation functions

Abstract

For applications in new fields such as agriculture, forestry and high-altitude work, a modular robot is developed for climbing posts, trees and trusses and manipulating objects. Inspired by the climbing motion of sloths, chimpanzees and inchworms, this new robot is designed to be anthropomorphic. It consists of six one-DOF joint modules in series and two special grippers at ends. The grippers are specially designed for various objects with different shapes and sizes. With the structure similar to a manipulator, the robot has both special climbing function and manipulation function. It is expected to perform a variety of tasks on posts, in trees and in trusses. Mechanical design and some basic analysis including the kinematics of the robot and force analysis of the grippers are presented in this paper. © 2008 IEEE.