Autonomous Stair Climbing with Reconfigurable Tracked Mobile Robot

Mobile robots have been developed for surveillance, reconnaissance and inspection as well as for operation in hazardous environments. Some are intended to explore not only natural terrains but also artificial environments, including stairs. This paper explores algorithms to autonomously climb stairs. The algorithms were derived and implemented for a specific mobile robot with the ability to traverse such obstacles by changing its tracks configuration. Furthermore, algorithms have been developed for conditions under which the mobile robot halts its motion during the climbing process when at risk of flipping over or falling down. The technical problems related to the implementation of some of these functions have been identified and analyzed, and their solutions validated and tested. The algorithms and solutions were validated experimentally, illustrating the effectiveness of autonomous climbing of stairs.