A Parrot-inspired Tripedal Robot for Climbing Sparse Vertical Structures
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2023
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Enabling robots to autonomously operate in sparse vertical structures will have a profound impact on the way we conduct inspection and maintenance of civil and space infrastructure. Whilst there has been substantial research on robots that climb vertical structures, few have focused specifically on the sparse vertical structures commonly found in infrastructure, which are characterised by a reticulated network of slender elements. In vertical climbing, these reticular structures are perhaps the most challenging. The thin, often non-symmetric, and non-uniform beams, highly constrain the available grasping locations, and add considerable uncertainty to the reliability of the contact points. To date, the literature is bereft of robots capable of traversing and performing useful work on reticular structures. This is likely due to a multitude of reasons, but the primary reason seems to be that the fundamental problem of locomotion on these structures is, as of yet, unsolved.
Most of the existing literature on such locomotion focuses on two- and four-limbed robotic concepts. In this work, we consider a novel three-limbed concept based on new inspiration; the morphology of parrots. Parrots are unique arboreal specialists, that are adept climbers and have a proven track record for in-structure manipulation. This combination of attributes makes parrots a prime candidate for study, as the behaviours they demonstrate day-to-day are analogous of the maintenance operations we aim to be capable of. The three-limbed climber we develop has redundant control of its body, which allows more options for control, more robust stability when compared to the inchworm robotic concept and saves on mass and cost with respect to the four-limbed robot.
In this thesis, we make progress in solving the problem of robotic locomotion in reticular structures by studying the morphology and behaviours of parrots. Through careful review of the biology, we identify several lessons that are useful in robotics development, as well as performing our own in vivo experiments on cockatiels. We then take a careful approach to the design of two tripedal robots of increasing complexity, culminating in a physically realisable tripedal climbing robot for locomotion on a simple subset of reticular structures: a vertical ladder. Through this exercise, we demonstrate that three-limbs are sufficient for the locomotion problem, making headway in progressing our understanding of the design of climbing robotic systems that may eventually allow us to realise our goal of autonomous civil and space infrastructure maintenance.
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