Abstract
Several wall-climbing robots use supporting tails to cancel the moment due to the gravity. However, the bias of loads on adhering suction cups still remains in order to push and attach a suction cup to the wall by the robot. In this paper, a novel supporting tail that can distribute equal loads on adhering suction cups is proposed. The tail is mounted on the robot thorough bearings. Analysis of loads on suction cups is performed to demonstrate the validity of the proposed design. Experiments are conducted, and the results verified the performance of the robot as well as the design of the tail.
