[Joe Johnson]

In my opinion, the most frequent mistake made by folks who are trying to design a robot to climb stairs is that they do not thinking about CG management.

It is relatively easy to get a chassis to climb a staircase. It is often much more difficult to have a robot with an arm or other tall mechanism not fall over while the chassis climbs the stairs.

Think about how your center of gravity moves as your robot climbs the stairs. If your CG ever gets behind the rearmost point of contact with the floor, you robot WILL tip. Even if it gets close, dynamic effects and other robots often make it likely that the robot will tip.

I highly recommend "wheelie bars" or other mechanisms to catch you if you tip. Even betten, I recommend trying to design a your stair climber so that you can climb stairs while keeping your CG between the wheels.


Joe J.