Stair-climbing Robot Research Articles

Stair-Climbing Wheeled Robot Based on Rotating Locomotion of Curved-Spoke Legs.

This study proposes a new wheel-leg mechanism concept and formulations for the kinematics and dynamics of a stair-climbing robot utilizing the rotating leg locomotion of curved spokes and rolling tires. The system consists of four motor-driven tires and four curved-spoke legs. The curved-spoke leg is semicircle-like and is used to climb stairs. Once the spoke leg rolls on the surface, it lifts and pulls the mating wheel toward the surface, owing to the kinematic constraint between the spoke and the wheel. Single-wheel climbing is a necessary condition for the stair climbing of whole robots equipped with front and rear axles. This study proposes the design requirements of a spoke leg for the success of single-wheel climbing in terms of kinematic inequality equations according to the scenario of single-wheel climbing. For a design configuration that enables single-wheel climbing, the required minimum friction coefficient for the static analysis of the stair-climbing wheeled robots is demon-strated. Thereafter, the stair-climbing ability is validated through the dynamic equations that enable the frictional slip of the tires, as well as the curved-spoke legs. Lastly, the results revealed that the rotating locomotion of the well-designed curved-spoke legs effectively enables the stair climbing of the whole robot.

Effects of track-based stair climbing robot on muscle activity, usability, and psychological anxiety: a preliminary study

This study investigated the effects of using the LiftCar-150 track-based stair-climbing robot on muscle activity, usability, and psychological anxiety. While stair-climbing robots enhance mobility for individuals with physical disabilities, existing research has predominantly focused on engineering perspectives, with limited attention to user-centered outcomes. Ten healthy participants and an 80 kg dummy rider completed stair-climbing tasks at slow (5 m/min) and fast (7 m/min) speeds. Muscle activity in the middle trapezius (MT), erector spinae (ES), multifidus (MF), gluteus maximus (Gmax), gluteus medius (Gmed), and anterior deltoid (AD) muscles was recorded by electromyography. Usability was evaluated in terms of safety, efficiency, and satisfaction using a 5-point Likert scale, while psychological anxiety was assessed with a visual analog scale (VAS) ranging from 0 to 10. Results showed that during stair ascent, activities of the back extensors (ES and MF) and gluteus muscles (Gmax and Gmed) significantly increased compared to descent, while anterior deltoid activity was higher during descent. Usability scores averaged 4.05 for stability, 4.1 for efficiency, and 3.7 for satisfaction. Perceived psychological anxiety scores were 4.2 ± 0.3 and 5.4 ± 0.5 at slow speed, and 3.5 ± 0.2 and 5.7 ± 0.4 at fast speed during ascent and descent, respectively. While operators recognized the robot’s stability and efficiency, satisfaction levels were neutral, and specific muscle activation was increased. These findings provide essential insights into optimizing the design and usability of stair-climbing robots to better address user needs.

Design and Analysis of Tracked Stair-Climbing Robot Using Innovative Suspension System

Obstacle-crossing and stair-climbing abilities are crucial to the performance of mobile robots for urban environment mobility. This paper proposes a tracked stair-climbing robot with two bogie-like suspensions to overcome architectural barriers. After a general introduction to stair-climbing robots, the “XXbot” concept is presented. We developed a special model that helps us figure out how a system will move based on the shape of the ground it is on. Then, stair-climbing simulations were performed with the multibody software MSC-Adams and the results are presented. This shows that the robot can be used in many different ways, such as stair-climbing wheelchair platforms.

WAVE: Last Mile Delivery Robotic Platform With Stair-Climbing Ability Via Four-Bar Linkage-Based Locomotion

This article presents WAVE, a four-bar linkage-based stair-climbing robot. WAVE is designed to be a last mile delivery robot that can deliver goods on stairways and flat ground. When the cranks comprising WAVE undergo rotation, the body and legs rotate parallel to each other. The rotating body and legs climb the stairs alternately. WAVE has a right-angled groove tailored to the shape of the stairs at the bottom so that it can step stably on the stairs. To prevent the robot from tilting quickly when exiting the stairs, the groove was designed to divide the angle of the robot into three. In-wheel motors are attached to the bottom of the WAVE so that it moves using the wheels on flat ground. Also, as a result of the dynamic analysis, we obtained the motor torque and friction coefficient required to climb stairs. The length of the crank, which is a design variable, was determined via mechanical analysis. The first experiment was performed on the test bench to ensure that the WAVE worked as intended. In addition, through field tests, it was confirmed that WAVE can move upstairs and downstairs on stairs of various sizes.

WAVES: Soft-Material Based Adaptable Walking-Type Stair-Climbing Robot for Various Step Sizes

WAVES: Soft-Material Based Adaptable Walking-Type Stair-Climbing Robot for Various Step Sizes

Design and Study of an AI-Powered Autonomous Stair Climbing Robot

Mobile robots are frequently utilized in the surveillance sector for both industrial and military purposes. The ability to navigate stairs is crucial for carrying out surveillance jobs like urban search and rescue operations. The research paper shows that the design methodology for a six-wheeled rover robot that can adapt to various stairs and maintain its stability based on the robot's specifications, kinematics restrictions, the maximum height, and the lowest step length needed to climb up and down the stairs is proposed. Based on a Raspberry Pi, camera, and LIDAR distance sensor, the suggested robot has the capacity to measure the stair height before starting to climb. A Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) deep learning model is developed for the purpose of stair recognition. Additionally, stair alignment was estimated using statistical filtering on pictures and LIDAR distance reading. The robot can then decide whether it can climb the stairs or not based on its kinematics limitations and the height of the stairs as measured by our system. Result shows that our stair detection algorithm achieved an accuracy of 99.46% and a mean average precision of 99.64%. The proposed AI-Powered Robot-based stair recognition system, according to final results, effectively climbed stairs with a height range between 13 and 23 cm.

3-D Modelling of Self-balancing Stair Climbing Robot for Warehouse Management

Abstract: Carrying luggage using carts and suitcases can be challenging, especially when climbing up and down stairs. Previous research has explored the use of crawlers and legs for mobile robots that can climb stairs, but these require complex systems and actuators. To address this, a power-assisted carrier cart with a Triple star wheel is proposed in this study to reduce the weight of carrying luggage. Previous research on mobile robots with stair-climbing capability has focused on crawlers and legs, which can be complex and require multiple actuators. To address the challenge of carrying luggage up and down stairs, a Triple star wheel-based power-assisted carrier cart is proposed in this study.

Stair-Climbing Robots: A Review on Mechanism, Sensing, and Performance Evaluation

Indoor service robots have been widely introduced in the fields of cleaning, delivery, education, guidance, and healthcare, etc. in indoor environments. The mobility of an indoor service robot is essential to expanding its applications. However, the mobility of existing indoor service robots is highly limited by surrounding indoor environments. For example, a stair is one of the major obstacles that restrict the reachable areas of indoor service robots. Even though many studies have been performed to develop reliable and fast stair-climbing robots based on legged, tracked, wheel-legged and wheel-linkage mechanisms, a market-dominant stair-climbing robot remains unsolved. This review investigates the efforts of engineers devoted to stair-climbing robots. To this end, the locomotion mechanisms of stair climbing robots are classified and their sensing method are summarized. In this review, we also propose useful criteria for evaluating the stair-climbing ability of an indoor service robot. By virtue of these criteria, the stair-climbing performance of existing robots are qualitatively compared. We hope this review helps develop the reliable and fast stair-climbing robots and the reasonable criteria for their performances.

Proposal of a Stair Climbing Robot with a Transformable Body

Proposal of a Stair Climbing Robot with a Transformable Body

A Study on Application of Nonlinear Model Predictive Control to Crawler Type Stair Climbing Robot

A Study on Application of Nonlinear Model Predictive Control to Crawler Type Stair Climbing Robot

Design and Control of a Stair Climbing Robot with a Rotating Link Mechanism with Built-in Slider

Design and Control of a Stair Climbing Robot with a Rotating Link Mechanism with Built-in Slider

A Study on Autonomous Stair-climbing System Using Landing Gear for Stair-climbing Robot

A Study on Autonomous Stair-climbing System Using Landing Gear for Stair-climbing Robot

移動支援と運搬作業支援を行う階段昇降移動ロボットの設計・開発:（階段形状に適応するC字型受動爪を有した車輪と段鼻間隔に適応する車体の設計）

移動支援と運搬作業支援を行う階段昇降移動ロボットの設計・開発:（階段形状に適応するC字型受動爪を有した車輪と段鼻間隔に適応する車体の設計）

Development of Novel Stair Climbing Robot

Development of Novel Stair Climbing Robot

Development of a Stair Climbing Robot with Omni Directional Movement

Development of a Stair Climbing Robot with Omni Directional Movement

Development of a Stair Climbing Robot for Operation in Nuclear Power Plants

Development of a Stair Climbing Robot for Operation in Nuclear Power Plants

Soft Landing Condition for Stair-climbing Robot with Hopping Mechanism

Soft Landing Condition for Stair-climbing Robot with Hopping Mechanism

Application to the Step Field of a Stair-Climbing Robot with Passive Crawlers

Application to the Step Field of a Stair-Climbing Robot with Passive Crawlers

2A2-D06 2自由度振動系を利用した2輪型高速階段昇降における必要踏面距離の短縮(車輪型/クローラ型移動ロボット(2))

In this paper, we propose a fast stair-climbing robot with a simple hopping mechanism using vibration of the two-degrees-of-freedom (2-DOF) system. This robot consists of upper and lower bodies connected by a spring and a wire, and hops by releasing stored energy in the spring and travels quickly using wheels mounted in the lower body. These mechanisms allow the robot to climb stairs quickly and economically and land softly without a complex control. Here, we developed a two-wheeled inverted pendulum mechanism to reduce the required tread length. As a result, the proposed mechanism reduced impact acceleration by 66% during the first landing and 60% during the second landing for the climbing height of 200 mm and reduced the required tread length by 92%.

DSP- and FPGA-Based Stair-Climbing Robot Design

A stair-climbing robot is equipped with a grasping arm for capturing objects to provide service for the elders. A board based on a digital signal processor (DSP) plays the role of control center to manage all actions of two brushless DC motors for locomotion, two worm gears for torque magnification, and two DC motors for arms&#x2019; pitching in the main body. The robot is steered by fuzzy logic control (FLC) which integrates the outputs of DC bus current sensor and an inclinometer. There is a CMOS camera for vision used in the robot, and the grasping arm is controlled via the video camera for capturing objects. Simple algorithms of image processing are implemented in the field programmable gate array (FPGA) board that generates the <svg style="vertical-align:-0.0pt;width:13.5875px;" id="M1" height="11.175" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 13.5875 11.175" width="13.5875" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"> <g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,.062,11.113)"><path id="x1D44B" d="M775 650l-6 -28q-60 -6 -81.5 -16t-61.5 -54l-175 -191l125 -243q30 -58 48.5 -71t82.5 -19l-5 -28h-275l7 28l35 4q31 4 37 12t-6 34l-108 216q-140 -165 -177 -219q-16 -22 -10.5 -30.5t41.5 -13.5l22 -3l-7 -28h-244l8 28q52 4 75 15.5t67 52.5q48 46 206 231&#xA;l-110 215q-26 51 -44 63t-72 17l6 28h250l-6 -28l-27 -4q-30 -5 -35 -10t3 -27q17 -43 95 -190q70 78 154 185q15 21 10 29.5t-33 12.5l-30 4l5 28h236z" /></g> </svg>-axis and <svg style="vertical-align:-0.0pt;width:11.6625px;" id="M2" height="11.175" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 11.6625 11.175" width="11.6625" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"> <g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,.062,11.113)"><path id="x1D44C" d="M667 650l-9 -28q-53 -5 -76 -17t-64 -59q-51 -61 -175 -225q-21 -29 -27 -55l-27 -136q-13 -65 -0.5 -80t83.5 -22l-7 -28h-280l8 28q64 4 81 19t30 83l25 128q6 35 -7 65l-98 231q-17 41 -32.5 52t-68.5 16l8 28h252l-6 -28l-40 -4q-27 -3 -33 -12.5t2 -31.5&#xA;q8 -26 43 -107.5t61 -134.5q114 145 174 240q14 24 8 33t-37 13l-34 4l8 28h238z" /></g> </svg>-axis commands of the grasping arm to capture/load objects. Three walking experiments of the stair-climbing robot to move up and down stairs are shown in the taped pictures from videos. The object tracking and capturing by the grasping arm and camera verifies the proposed design.