Development and control of flexible pneumatic wall-climbing robot

A new kind of flexible pneumatic wall-climbing robot, named WALKMAN-I, was proposed. WALKMAN-I is basically composed of a flexible pneumatic actuator (FPA), a flexible pneumatic spherical joint and six suction cups. It has many characteristics of low-cost, lightweight, simple structure and good flexibility. Its operating principle was introduced. Then three basic locomotion modes, which are linear motion, curvilinear motion and crossing the orthogonal planes, were presented. The safety conditions of WALKMAN-I were discussed and built. Finally, the control system was designed and experiments were carried out. Experimental results show that WALKMAN-I is able to climb on the vertical wall surface along a straight line or a curved path, and has the ability of crossing orthogonal planes and obstacles. The maximum rotation angle reaches 90°, the maximum velocity reaches 5 mm/s, and the rotation angle and the moving velocity of WALKMAN-I can be easily controlled.