Date of Award

6-2011

Degree Name

MS in Mechanical Engineering

Department/Program

Mechanical Engineering

Advisor

Saeed B. Niku

Abstract

This report describes the design, building, and testing of the Structure Climbing Monkey Robot (SCMR). It is composed of seven successive joints and linkages with two grippers at the two ends. Each gripper can act as the base or the end of the robot. The SCMR has the ability to climb any structure. The gripper plates can be changed to grab different kinds of structures, but this one is made to grab 2x4‘s. A program was written to assist the user to grab four non-coplanar, non-orthogonal points.

The SCMR is actuated by a total of nine motors: two to open and close the two grippers and seven to control the movement of the SCMR. Planetary gear motors are used with a worm gear to control the motion of each joint. The worm gear increases the torque of the motor and reduces the rotational speed to a usable value. The SCMR is just over 45 inches long and weighs about 30 pounds.

The motion of the SCMR is controlled by the microcontroller Arduino Mega 2560, Vex Robotic quadrature encoders, and Pololu 18v15 motor driver chips. Code was written in the languages Arduino and Processing to actuate the motors and create the GUI, respectively. The motors can be controlled individually or run simultaneously while incrementing a specified angle.

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