The obstacle-surmounting analysis of a pole-climbing robot

Abstract

Surmounting obstacles during continuously climbing in a complex environment is an important issue for pole-climbing robots. An obstacle-surmounting strategy is presented for a pole-climbing robot. The force and moment applied on the pole-climbing robot in static status were analyzed, and the analysis of pole-climbing robot’s upward vertical climbing was conducted. The climbing execution has four steps: loosening the lower gripper, curling up, striding forward, and clamping the upper gripper. To obtain the information of obstacle crossing accurately, the obstacle-surmounting conditions were analyzed in detail. We modeled the striding linkage with thickness and obtained the Denavit–Hartenberg coordinates of each vertex. The model of the grippers with thickness was proposed and the Denavit–Hartenberg coordinates of each vertex of the grippers were obtained. Then single-step negotiating an obstacle and multistep negotiating an obstacle were proposed. Experiments were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the obstacle-surmounting strategy.