The evolution of UT pole climbing robots

Abstract

In this paper, we present three pole climbing robots which were evolved gradually to reduce the complexity and increase the payload of the robots. The designs evolved toward natural stability, which is inspired from human pole climbers. In contrast to human climbers, all three versions rely on wheel mechanism to ensure smooth and fast climbing motion. The stability of the robots was statically analyzed and simulated. Furthermore, the robots have been implemented and successfully tested.