A Biologically Inspired Miniature Biped Climbing Robot

Inspired by the motion patterns of inchworms, a miniature biped climbing robot is developed with modularization method for some tedious and dangerous high-rise tasks. This inchworm-like mini-robot consists of several modules including I-typed joint modules, T-typed joint modules, and gripper modules, which are all driven by small RC servo motors. In this paper, the development of the robot prototype with biomimetic and modular methods is presented, and two feasible gaits of the mini-robot are proposed for climbing poles, trees and trusses. The climbing ability of such biped robot is verified through simple experiments. It is shown that the locomotion function of some biped climbing animals such as inchworms can be easily implemented by simple mechatronic systems.