Quadruped Robots Can Climb Ladders Now

Japanese engineers created a four-legged robot that can walk on horizontal surfaces and climb absolutely vertical stairs.

The development was presented at the IROS 2019 conference.

Walking robots have become popular among researchers due to their ability to overcome obstacles on the ground, as well as the fact that their elements and algorithms have been greatly developed in recent years.

According to nplus1.ru, Naoyuki Kubota and his colleagues from the University of Tokyo have equipped a four-wheeled robot with simple handles that will not interfere with the movement but will allow them to climb and continue vertically. The device has a sophisticated footprint with five freedoms in each. At the end of the toe, there is an adjustment system that allows you to retain power and stairs.

The rear of the robot has two lasers for navigation and four cameras for flight. By sending two types of sensor beams, they measure the distance directly and the time that the reflected beams return to them. Data from different sensors are integrated into a single point cloud, machine learning algorithms independently recognize stairs and calculate optimal capture points.

Experts note that robots need to be trained separately to climb each staircase. In the future, this problem will be solved by engineers.