In climbing robots, weak grasping, large size, and a lack of self-perception capability are critical problems that urgently need to be solved. Inspired by the excellent grasping ability of primate ...hands and the simple locomotion method of inchworms, this study proposes an inchworm-like climbing robot based on synergistic cable-driven grippers and a telescopic torso. First, the overall structure of the climbing robot was designed by analyzing the characteristic movements of primate hands and inchworms. Next, a cable-driven soft gripper was designed based on geometric, modulus, and motion similarity with primate hands using dimensionless analysis. Then, a telescopic climbing robot torso was designed to mimic the peristalsis motion of inchworms by using double flexible thin-shelled rods that bend easily in the forward direction and resist movement in the reverse direction. Subsequently, flexible tensile strain sensors were designed based on carbon nanotubes and iron nanowires and then integrated into the soft grippers and torso for self-perception of the motion state. Subsequently, flexible sensors, soft grippers, and a telescopic torso were fabricated using casting and dipping-pulling technology. Finally, the climbing performance of the robot was experimentally tested. The results indicate that the robot can stably climb pipes with different roughness and diameters, and the embedded sensors can capture the motion of the gripper and torso. The climbing speed of the robot was 3.3 mm/s for horizontal pipes and 1.0 mm/s for vertical pipes.
This paper proposes an underactuated modular climbing robot with flat dry elastomer adhesives. This robot is designed to achieve high speed, high payload, and dexterous motions that are typical ...drawbacks of previous climbing robots. Each module is designed as a tread-wheeled mechanism to simultaneously realize high speed and high adhesive force. Two modules are connected by compliant joints, which induce a positive preload on the front wheels resulting in stable climbing and high payload capacity. Compliant joints also help the robot to perform various transitions. An active tail is adopted to regulate the preload of the second module. Force transfer equations are derived and stable operating conditions are verified. The stiffness coefficients of the compliant joints and the active tail force are determined optimally to satisfy the constraints of stable operation. The prototype two-module robot achieves 6-cm/s speed and 500-g payload capacity on vertical surfaces. The abilities of flat surface locomotion, internal, external, and thin-wall transitions, and overcoming various sized obstacles are validated through experiment. The principle of joint compliance can be adopted in other climbing robots to enhance their stability and transition capability.
This paper introduces Omniclimber, a new climbing robot with high maneuverability for inspection of ferromagnetic flat and convex human made structures. In addition to maneuverability, adaptability ...to various structures with different curvatures and materials are addressed. The conceptual and detailed design of OmniClimbers are presented and two prototypes of the robot are introduced. Several laboratory and field tests are reported, and the results are discussed.
•OmniClimbers are agile robots for climbing and navigation over ferromagnetic structures.•They are specially designed to rapidly reach any required pose on the structure.•They use omnidirectional wheels for a good maneuverability.•The novel central magnet grant the required normal force while keeping the friction low.•They adapt passively to various structure material, diameter and thicknesses.
Questions
What are the effects of rock‐climbing on diversity, abundance and composition of cliff‐face vegetation along environmental gradients? Does site variability influence cliff vegetation more ...than the presence of climbing?
Location
Linville Gorge Wilderness Area, NC, USA.
Methods
We compared species richness, Shannon’s diversity, abundance and species composition of lichens, bryophytes and vascular plants within 334 plots, each 1 m2. We compared climbed plots with unclimbed plots using Non‐metric Multidimensional (Distance) Scaling ordination, means comparison and regression analysis.
Results
Eighty‐five species were observed within 334 m2 of cliff‐face plots, including one North Carolina state (Canoparmelia alabamensis) and 21 Burke County collection records. Climbing altered cliff plant communities: unclimbed cliffs supported more diverse and different species than did climbed cliffs. However, site was more important than was climbing in differentiating cliff community composition. Variation in species composition was driven mostly by variation in cliff aspect and surface heterogeneity. Cliffs with the highest surface heterogeneity had the highest species richness, diversity and abundance of all three vegetation types (lichens, bryophytes and vascular plants). Unclimbed areas had similar richness, diversity and abundance compared with easy climbing routes, whereas harder climbing routes supported lower species richness and abundance of all vegetation types.
Conclusions
Differences in cliff‐face vegetation in Linville Gorge were due more to site variability than to climbing impact. Therefore, management of climbing areas and decisions for future route development should be site‐specific and include a thorough biological survey.
Rock‐climbing altered cliff plant communities: unclimbed cliffs were more diverse and different from climbed cliffs. Unclimbed areas and easy climbing routes supported similar communities, whereas harder routes had lower species richness and abundance. Variability in species composition was driven by cliff aspect and surface heterogeneity. Each cliff site was unique. Management on current and future development should be site‐specific.
The climbing microrobots have attracted growing attention due to their promising applications in exploration and monitoring of complex, unstructured environments. Soft climbing microrobots based on ...muscle-like actuators could offer excellent flexibility, adaptability, and mechanical robustness. Despite the remarkable progress in this area, the development of soft microrobots capable of climbing on flat/curved surfaces and transitioning between two different surfaces remains elusive, especially in open spaces. In this study, we address these challenges by developing voltage-driven soft small-scale actuators with customized 3D configurations and active stiffness adjusting. Combination of programmed strain distributions in liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) and buckling-driven 3D assembly, guided by mechanics modeling, allows for voltage-driven, complex 3D-to-3D shape morphing (bending angle > 200°) at millimeter scales (from 1 to 10 mm), which is unachievable previously. These soft actuators enable development of morphable electroadhesive footpads that can conform to different curved surfaces and stiffness-variable smart joints that allow different locomotion gaits in a single microrobot. By integrating such morphable footpads and smart joints with a deformable body, we report a multigait, soft microrobot (length from 6 to 90 mm, and mass from 0.2 to 3 g) capable of climbing on surfaces with diverse shapes (e.g., flat plane, cylinder, wavy surface, wedge-shaped groove, and sphere) and transitioning between two distinct surfaces. We demonstrate that the microrobot could navigate from one surface to another, recording two corresponding ceilings when carrying an integrated microcamera. The developed soft microrobot can also flip over a barrier, survive extreme compression, and climb bamboo and leaf.
Superpixel algorithms aim to over-segment the image by grouping pixels that belong to the same object. Many state-of-the-art superpixel algorithms rely on minimizing objective functions to enforce ...color homogeneity. The optimization is accomplished by sophisticated methods that progressively build the superpixels, typically by adding cuts or growing superpixels. As a result, they are computationally too expensive for real-time applications. We introduce a new approach based on a simple hill-climbing optimization. Starting from an initial superpixel partitioning, it continuously refines the superpixels by modifying the boundaries. We define a robust and fast to evaluate energy function, based on enforcing color similarity between the boundaries and the superpixel color histogram. In a series of experiments, we show that we achieve an excellent compromise between accuracy and efficiency. We are able to achieve a performance comparable to the state-of-the-art, but in real-time on a single Intel i7 CPU at 2.8 GHz.
Aims/hypothesis
The aim of this study was to examine the dose–response associations of device-measured physical activity types and postures (sitting and standing time) with cardiometabolic health.
...Methods
We conducted an individual participant harmonised meta-analysis of 12,095 adults (mean ± SD age 54.5±9.6 years; female participants 54.8%) from six cohorts with thigh-worn accelerometry data from the Prospective Physical Activity, Sitting and Sleep (ProPASS) Consortium. Associations of daily walking, stair climbing, running, standing and sitting time with a composite cardiometabolic health score (based on standardised
z
scores) and individual cardiometabolic markers (BMI, waist circumference, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, HbA
1c
and total cholesterol) were examined cross-sectionally using generalised linear modelling and cubic splines.
Results
We observed more favourable composite cardiometabolic health (i.e.
z
score <0) with approximately 64 min/day walking (
z
score 95% CI −0.14 −0.25, −0.02) and 5 min/day stair climbing (−0.14 −0.24, −0.03). We observed an equivalent magnitude of association at 2.6 h/day standing. Any amount of running was associated with better composite cardiometabolic health. We did not observe an upper limit to the magnitude of the dose–response associations for any activity type or standing. There was an inverse dose–response association between sitting time and composite cardiometabolic health that became markedly less favourable when daily durations exceeded 12.1 h/day. Associations for sitting time were no longer significant after excluding participants with prevalent CVD or medication use. The dose–response pattern was generally consistent between activity and posture types and individual cardiometabolic health markers.
Conclusions/interpretation
In this first activity type-specific analysis of device-based physical activity, ~64 min/day of walking and ~5.0 min/day of stair climbing were associated with a favourable cardiometabolic risk profile. The deleterious associations of sitting time were fully attenuated after exclusion of participants with prevalent CVD and medication use. Our findings on cardiometabolic health and durations of different activities of daily living and posture may guide future interventions involving lifestyle modification.
Graphical Abstract
Purpose
Injury prevalence patterns for climbers have been presented in several papers but results are heterogenous largely due to a mix of included climbing disciplines and injury mechanisms. This ...study describes the distribution and pattern of acute traumatic climbing injuries sustained during outdoor climbing in Sweden.
Methods
Patients that experienced a climbing related traumatic injury during outdoor climbing between 2008 and 2019 and who submitted a self-reported questionnaire to the Swedish Climbing Association were included in the study. Medical records were retrieved, and the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation injury classification system was used for injury presentation.
Results
Thirty-eight patients were included in the study. Seven (18%) injuries occurred during traditional climbing, 13 (34%) during sport climbing and 9 (24%) during bouldering. Varying with climbing discipline, 84–100% injuries were caused by falls. Injuries of the foot and ankle accounted for 72–100% of the injuries. Fractures were the most common injury (60%) followed by sprains (17%) and contusions (10%).
Conclusions
Traumatic injuries sustained during outdoor climbing in Sweden were predominantly caused by falls and affected the lower extremities in all major outdoor climbing disciplines. Rope management errors as a cause of injury were common in sport climbing and in activity surrounding the climbing, indicating there is room for injury-preventing measures.
Ginszt, M, Saito, M, Zięba, E, Majcher, P, and Kikuchi, N. Body composition, anthropometric parameters, and strength-endurance characteristics of sport climbers: a systematic review. J Strength Cond ...Res 37(6): 1339-1348, 2023-Sport climbing was selected to be part of the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021 with 3 subdisciplines: lead climbing, speed climbing, and bouldering. The nature of physical effort while speed climbing, lead climbing, and bouldering performance is different. This literature review aimed to describe differences between body composition, anthropometric parameters, and upper-limb strength-endurance variables between sport climbers with different ability levels and nonclimbers. The following databases were searched: PubMed and Scopus. The following keywords were used: "sport climbing," "rock climbing," "lead climbing," and "bouldering." Articles were considered from January 2000 to October 2021 if they concerned at least one of the following parameters: body composition (mass, body mass index, body fat, lean muscle mass, bone mineral density), anthropometric parameters (height, ape index), muscle strength (MVC finger strength in half-crimp grip, MVC finger strength to body mass, handgrip strength), and muscle endurance (force time integral, pull-ups). A review shows that body mass and body fat content were lower in the sport climbers compared with controls and in elite sport climbers compared with those less advanced. Sport climbers presented higher values of MVC finger strength in half-crimp grip, MVC finger strength to body mass, handgrip strength, and force time integral parameter than control subjects. Significantly higher MVC values in half-crimp grip were observed in elite sport climbers than in advanced athletes. None of the analyzed work showed differences between sport climber groups in the ape index. The abovementioned parameters may be a key factor in elite sport climbing performance.
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