A novel approach to robotic climbing using continuum appendages in in-situ exploration

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the ability of continuum "hook" appendages to transform robot climbing. The key innovation is via exploitation of contact and impact dynamics when "grasping" the terrain. We introduce a new ellipsoid measure and use it to analyze and select the optimal shape and motion of tunable continuum hooks for given terrains and climbing scenarios. This new ellipsoid is a generalization of impact ellipsoids used previously for traditional rigid-link robots. We illustrate and support the analysis using results from laboratory experiments using a novel robot rover with continuum appendages developed by our research group.