Linkage Length Optimization of a Climbing Inspection Robot Using an Area Overlap Method

This paper develops a new area overlap method (AOM) to optimize the linkage length of a ladder-climbing robot. Unlike the traditional path generation methods that use precise synthesis points, AOM evaluates the optimisation result by the area overlap ratio of two enclosed trajectories. The proposed method is suitable for the case that trajectory planning of a mechanism moves over obstacles, where the generated desired trajectory must completely contain the target area. Since the linkage trajectory optimized by AOM will not intersect with the target area, the AOM’s result will help prevent the robot from being interfered with by obstacles during climbing. Based on the AOM, this paper optimizes the standard Hoeken linkage structure. The simulation results show that the AOM performs better than the traditional path generation method in this case. To further verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, a ladder-climbing robot driven by one motor was designed. The experimental evaluations show that the robot can successfully climb a ladder.