Engineers teach a quadruped robot to climb standard ladders

A team of robotics engineers from ETH Zurich’s Robotics Systems Lab modified a quadruped ANYbotics ANYMal robot to enable it to easily and efficiently climb a standard ladder. The group wrote a document describing its efforts and results and published it on the arXiv preprint server.

For many years, manufacturers who have deployed robots in their facilities have noted that while robots have come a long way in replacing human workers, one area where they fall short is climbing simple ladders. . In response, engineers at several companies attempted to give such a capability to robots, almost all of which were bipedal humanoid robots.

These robots are generally very slow and hesitant and of little use in a real-world environment. In this new effort, the research team modified a standard quadruped robot known as ANYMal in a way that allowed it to climb standard ladders very quickly and nimbly.

The team noted that most robot “hands” or “legs” are not very conducive to climbing ladders. Humans, they note, form a hook with their hands, then grasp each rung as they progress upward. Therefore, the research team began by designing a custom tab with a hook-like gripping ability, which allowed it to be tightened once the hook was made. They then used reinforcement learning to teach the robot how to use its hooks to climb a ladder.

To accelerate the training, the researchers used a simulation in which a preferred teacher-student approach was used, where the teacher had access to observation videos of simulated robots climbing ladders in various environments and where problems were encountered , like a tremor. ladder or a missed step. Such training resulted in strong climbing skills. Several student robots were then taught by allowing them to imitate the teacher.

Once the test robot was fully trained, the research team launched it into a real-world environment where it was asked to climb various ladders. Researchers found that this method was effective in about 90% of cases. They also found that their modified robot significantly outperformed the same type of robot without the hooked feet.

The research team plans to continue their work on ladder climbing, hoping to add more features such as the ability to traverse ladders in unstructured environments without the need for capture equipment. movement.

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