Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Balance locomotion and grasping in multi-limbed robots
Design hardware for extreme terrain climbing
Enhance gripper versatility and climbing speed
SCALER: Versatile Multi-Limbed Robot for Free-Climbing in Extreme Terrains
🤖 AI Summary
Coordinating locomotion and dexterous manipulation remains challenging for legged robots operating in extreme terrain. Method: This paper introduces SCALER, a novel robotic system integrating whole-body dynamics, adaptive limb design, and multimodal perception. Its core innovations include: (1) a trunk-assisted force-bearing whole-body dynamic climbing paradigm enabling tight coupling of locomotion and grasping; (2) a hybrid serial-parallel limb architecture coupled with a 7-mode adaptive GOAT underactuated two-finger gripper capable of dynamic closure on non-convex holds; and (3) a unified framework combining multimodal terrain perception, high-speed closed-loop grasp control, and whole-body dynamic motion planning. Results: Experiments demonstrate, for the first time, fully autonomous, omnidirectional free climbing—on vertical, overhanging, inverted, wet, and non-convex rock surfaces—under gravity-dominated, anchor-free conditions, eliminating reliance on fixed anchors or structured footholds typical of conventional climbing robots.
📝 Abstract
This paper presents SCALER, a versatile free-climbing multi-limbed robot that is designed to achieve tightly coupled simultaneous locomotion and dexterous grasping. Although existing quadruped-limbed robots have shown impressive dexterous skills such as object manipulation, it is essential to balance power-intensive locomotion and dexterous grasping capabilities. We design a torso linkage and a parallel-serial limb to meet such conflicting skills that pose unique challenges in the hardware designs. SCALER employs underactuated two-fingered GOAT grippers that can mechanically adapt and offer 7 modes of grasping, enabling SCALER to traverse extreme terrains with multi-modal grasping strategies. We study the whole-body approach, where SCALER uses its body and limbs to generate additional forces for stable grasping with environments, further enhancing versatility. Furthermore, we improve the GOAT gripper actuation speed to realize more dynamic climbing in a closed-loop control fashion. With these proposed technologies, SCALER can traverse vertical, overhang, upside-down, slippery terrains, and bouldering walls with non-convex-shaped climbing holds under the Earth's gravity.
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Parallel-serial limb design for locomotion and grasping
Underactuated GOAT grippers with seven grasping modes
Closed-loop control for dynamic climbing speed
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