Abstract—Mini-Whegs™, a power-autonomous vehicle that uses multi-spoke wheel-legs for locomotion, is able to climb vertical glass surfaces with several different wheel-leg designs. Adhesion to the glass is achieved using pressure sensitive adhesives. In this paper, high-speed video is used to compare the performance and contact area during steps of five passive foot designs. The contact area, when normalized by the leg length, may help explain the differences in performance between several designs. C I.

We previously presented a remote-controlled robot, Climbing Mini-Whegstrade, which scales vertical glass walls using passive compliant feet on simple rotating wheel-legs [1]. With a single drive motor, the legs of the robot press the feet against the glass, then gradually peel them away, mimicking the foot motions observed in insects. With feet made of scotch tape, the robot was able to walk on glass walls and ceilings and transition between surfaces intersecting at interior angles. This paper demonstrates that using passively compliant feet on simple rotating wheel-legs a robot can apply adhesive feet, spines, and Velcro in order to climb various steep substrates.

The monopod hopper described fits into a cube that is 5 cm on a side, is autonomous, and is designed to be statically stable and passively dynamically stable. Hopping is achieved through the excitation of a spring-mass system at its resonant frequency. Simulations were extensively used to finalize the design, before construction of the robot. The hopper, although having no active directional control, is able to climb steps up to 1 mm, travel at a rate of 1.5 body lengths per second for an average of over 225 cm before deviating significantly from its original course, and can operate up to 45 min before depleting the energy stored in the batteries.