A binary approximating method for graspable region determination of biped climbing robots

For a biped pole-climbing robot (BiPCR) with grippers, it is an essential demand to determine the target grasp configuration for climbing and transiting between poles, with the graspable region as a priori knowledge. The graspable region on the target pole is critically important for climbing path planning and motion control. To efficiently compute the graspable region for a BiPCR, we propose a novel binary approximating method in this paper. This method may also be applied to generate the three-dimensional (3-D) workspace of a manipulator with constant orientation. The grasping problem and the concept of graspable region for a BiPCR are first introduced. The binary approximating method and the corresponding algorithms are then presented to generate the graspable region. Additional constraints on a biped climbing robot with five degrees of freedom (DoFs) are presented as a supplement to the algorithm. A series of comprehensive simulations are conducted with the five-DoF and six-DoF climbing robots to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Finally, the dexterity of biped climbing robots with different DoFs is discussed.