Wheeled Robot
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Step climbing of redundant wheeled robot
This work focuses on development of a redundant wheeled robot for climbing steep obstacles. The proposed design of the robot has five modules, where each module consists of a rigid link and two wheels. The joints connecting these modules are passive whereas the only actuation is provided at the wheels. The use of compliant elements like springs at the passive joints is proposed in this work for climbing steps of varying heights. A framework is presented for choosing appropriate spring stiffness by investigating the static stability of the robot during its ascent phase. In contrast to existing active suspension step climbers, the proposed mechanism does not need knowledge of a step height beforehand. The robot was simulated to climb steps of various heights with constant wheel velocity. Presently, the efforts are being made to implement the proposed algorithm for control of physical prototype of the robot and to achieve wheel torque optimization. Related reading:
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