Rubbot: Rubbing on flexible loose surfaces

Abstract

This paper presents a newly-designed robot named “Rubbot” dedicated to climbing on soft flexible clothes. Equipped with novel grippers which grip and rub on clothes, Rubbot is able to climb on flexible clothes and control how much fabric to grasp by feedback from infrared sensor. Rubbot also has a frame which has three passive folders which adjust the climbing posture of Rubbot. This not only makes Rubbot quite functional with clothes of different thicknesses and curved surfaces, but also makes Rubbot's motion more flexible. A theory of the deformation of cloth is then presented based on an analysis of creases created while Rubbot is climbing, this leads to a more reliable method to climb flexible surfaces. Finally experiments have verified that Rubbot is effective on flexible surfaces, as it can climb on 95% of the surfaces human clothes and still perform well on non-rigidly backed cloth.