Originality/value – This paper describes how a miniature wall climbing robot with biomechanical suction cups actuated by SMA without any air pump is designed. Findings – Experiments indicate that the suction cup can be used as an adhesion mechanism for miniature wall climbing robots, and the miniature robot prototype with biomechanical suction cups can move in straight line and turn with a fixed angle on an inclined glass wall.
The robot's gait, kinematics, and control system are all illustrated in this paper. A triangular close linkage locomotion mechanism is chosen for the miniature robot because of its simple structure and control. Theory analysis of the suction cup is made considering elastic plate's deflection and SMAs constitutive model. Design/methodology/approach – Based on characteristics of biologic suction apparatuses, the biomechanical suction cup is designed first. The purpose of this paper is to design a miniature wall climbing robot with biomechanical suction cups actuated by shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators. Purpose – Wall climbing robots' volume is needed to be very small in fields that workspace is limited, such as anti-terror scouting, industry pipe network inspecting and so on. The feasibility of the proposed robot is shown through a prototype. Thanks to this, the poses reachable by the proposed robot are doubled, granting it a denser workspace and more accuracy than similar robots, using only two binary actuators. The 2RPR-PR chain can perform nonsingular transitions, which is the ability of many parallel robots to switch between different poses corresponding to the same state of its actuators, without crossing singularities. To solve this, this paper presents a new sliding-frame robot consisting of two bodies connected through a 2RPR-PR kinematic chain driven by two binary actuators. However, most existing sliding-frame robots require continuous actuators to reach targets with precision, since binary actuators impose steps of fixed length. Rad-wally-at-logistics-center A previously deployed RAD Wally security robot providing controlled access to a logistics company facility. Sliding-frame robots are simpler and offer safer adhesion than legged and wheeled robots, and their control can be simplified using binary actuators that adopt only two stable states. They move by alternately adhering one body to the structure while moving the other body to the next position. Sliding-frame mobile robots used for autonomously inspecting metallic structures consist of two bodies connected by few joints.