Conceptual Design of a New Stair-Climbing Mobile Platform Using a Hybrid Link Mechanism

High mobility performance is the most important key to mobile robots. In this research, a new indoor stair-climbing mobile platform is proposed on the basis of a hybrid-link mechanism. The hybrid link mechanism combining the passive link with the active mechanism can guarantee well-balanced simplicity as well as adaptability performance in comparison with the previous passive mechanisms. First, a requirement list for a stair-climbing indoor mobile platform is made upon the related researches. Then, a new kinematic model of hybrid link mechanism is suggested by using systematic design methodology. For the optimization of design parameters such as wheel radii and link lengths, the cost function is chosen as the combination of the backward movement and the deviation of path angle during climbing up stairs. Then, the optimization of the kinematic variables for the hybrid link mechanism is carried out via generic algorithm.