Design and development of a low-cost pole climbing robot using Arduino Mega

Nowadays, climbing robots are widely used in industrial and hazardous environments for inspection purposes. On the other hand, the Pole climbing robot can help workers fix maintenance, power transmission, etc. This article aims to design and fabricate an autonomous pole climbing robot, which can climb upward/downward a pole. The robot has two grippers at the top and bottom of the robot body, climbing along a pole by alternating release/grip mechanism. The robot body and robot grippers are fabricated using a rapid prototyping machine using PLA material. The prototype of the robot is tested on a pole of diameter 110 cm. The average time taken for the robot to climb 40 cm on a straight pole is 18.18 s and 17.21 s for upward and downward motion, respectively.