SpiderBot: a cable-suspended walking robot

•A novel concept of a mobile cable-suspended robot, called SpiderBot, is presented.•We present the design of SpiderBot.•The kinematics and statics analysis are formulated.•A motion algorithm for SpiderBot is obtained.•Simulations and experiments are shown on a SpiderBot prototype.

This paper presents a novel concept of a mobile cable-suspended robot called SpiderBot. The robot consists of four cable-mechanisms and a central body. Each cable-mechanism includes a cable, a dispensing and rolling mechanism, and a gripper at the end of the cable. The robot shoots an arrow-like grasping mechanism towards possible grasping points. The grasping mechanism is attached to the distal end of the cable. Then it pulls the cables simultaneously in a coordinated manner, hence the robot can perform controlled motion of the central body. Depending on the locations of the grasping points and the coordinated pulling, the robot can perform motion around and over obstacles. In this paper the design, kinematics, statics, motion planning, simulation results and experiments that were conducted are presented using our SpiderBot prototype.