Bio-inspired 2D Vertical Climbing with a Novel Tripedal Robot

Climbing robots have the potential to revolutionize the maintenance and inspection operations of many types of vertical structures. In nature, parrots exhibit a remarkable capacity for manipulation during climbing behaviors, for which robotics can benefit from studying. In this paper we present a novel tripedal robot that is inspired by the morphology of these impressive birds, which use their legs and beak in a tripedal fashion when climbing. We propose several foot placement, trajectory generation, and control methods for this system along with performance evaluation in simulation. A video of select simulations and live bird data is included in the supplementary material, and can also be found at https://youtu.be/vRVGralyQgQ.