This paper explores the design strategies for hybrid pole- or trunk-climbing robots, focusing on methods to inform design decisions and assess metrics such as adaptability and performance. A wheeled-grasping hybrid robot with modular, tendon-driven grasping arms and a wheeled drive system mounted on a turret was developed to climb columns of varying diameters. Here, the key innovation is the underactuated arms that can be adjusted to different column sizes by adding or removing modular linkages, though the robot also features capabilities like self-locking (the ability of the robot to stay on the column by friction without power), autonomous grasping, and rotation around the column axis. Mathematical models describe conditions for self-locking and vertical climbing. Experimental results demonstrate the robot's efficacy in climbing and self-locking, validating the proposed models and highlighting the potential for fully automated solutions in industrial applications. This work provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating and designing hybrid climbing robots, contributing to advancements in autonomous robotics for environments where climbing tall structures is critical.

Mobile robots are widely used to perform various technological operations in several sectors of the national economy. These operations are related to transporting goods and equipment, performing work to determine the condition of a technical object or structure, their construction or repair, performing work to study a specific territory and compile relevant maps, etc. Recently, the list of operations that mobile robots can perform has expanded with police and military operations. Obviously, the safety of personnel working nearby and the time required to perform the relevant operations depend on such robots' speed and accuracy of movement. Therefore, an important task arises to study and form the trajectories of movement of mobile robots. Optimization, adaptation, robustness methods, and the theory of movement stability allow us to consider a mobile robot as a dynamic system with several inputs and outputs. The mathematical description of such a dynamic system can be used to analyze and synthesize the desired trajectories of movement by solving the corresponding direct and inverse dynamics problems. Therefore, creating a mathematical model of a mobile robot is a relevant task, the solution of which allows us to create and research robot control systems that ensure movement along predetermined desired trajectories.

This paper reports a practical articulated wheeled in-pipe inspection robot "AIRo-7.1" which is waterproof and dustproof, and can adapt to 3 to 4 in inner diameters. The joint torque can be adjusted by a PWM open-loop control. The middle joint angle can be controlled by a position feedback control system while the other two joints are bent by torsional springs. Thanks to this simple and high-density design, not only downsizing of the robot but also wide range of the adaptive inner diameter were achieved. However, the relationship between the actual middle joint torque value and the PWM duty ratio should be pre-known because the reducer used in AIRo-7.1 was designed by ourselves. Therefore, preliminary experiments were conducted to clarify the relationship between them. To examine the adaptive movement, experiments in both 3 in and 4 in pipes with vertical, bend, and diameter change sections. Finally, field experiment was also conducted. From the results, high adaptability to different inner diameters of pipes and slippery environments were confirmed although waterproof and dustproof were not perfectly working.

After evaluating various caster wheel options, where they might attempt to roll in different directions I opted for a more robust choice with a load capacity while both intended to move forward. of 70 each. These casters featured thick rubber wheel Beside the three hardware solutions above, additional hardware covers up to 2 to minimise friction when rolling on surfaces was integrated into the robotic partition via customised 3-printed with less slip, like carpets. With a wheel diameter of connections to increase its affordances as shown in Figure 1, including: 100, they provided sufficient'span' to support the partition, enabling stable movement without overly increasing its overall footprint.

In field environments, numerous robots necessitate manual intervention for restoration of functionality post a turnover, resulting in diminished operational efficiency. This study presents an innovative design solution for a reversible omnidirectional mobile robot denoted as CuRobot, featuring a cube structure, thereby facilitating uninterrupted omnidirectional movement even in the event of flipping. The incorporation of eight conical wheels at the cube vertices ensures consistent omnidirectional motion no matter which face of the cube contacts the ground. Additionally, a kinematic model is formulated for CuRobot, accompanied by the development of a trajectory tracking controller utilizing model predictive control. Through simulation experiments, the correlation between trajectory tracking accuracy and the robot's motion direction is examined. Furthermore, the robot's proficiency in omnidirectional mobility and sustained movement post-flipping is substantiated via both simulation and prototype experiments. This design reduces the inefficiencies associated with manual intervention, thereby increasing the operational robustness of robots in field environments.