A Multimodal Robot for Perching and Climbing on Vertical Outdoor Surfaces

Perching can extend the useful mission life of a micro air vehicle. Once perched, climbing allows it to reposition precisely, with low power draw and without regard for weather conditions. We present the Stanford Climbing and Aerial Maneuvering Platform, which is to our knowledge the first robot capable of flying, perching with passive technology on outdoor surfaces, climbing, and taking off again. We present the mechanical design and the new perching, climbing, and takeoff strategies that allow us to perform these tasks on surfaces such as concrete and stucco, without the aid of a motion capture system or off-board computation. We further discuss two new capabilities uniquely available to a hybrid aerial–scansorial robot: the ability to recover gracefully from climbing failures and the ability to increase usable foothold density through the application of aerodynamic forces. We also measure real power consumption for climbing, flying, and monitoring and discuss how future platforms could be improved for longer mission life.