No abstract

Animals have shown the ability to climb vertical surfaces with high speed and stability. Utilizing the underlying dynamics of these animals, robotic platforms have been developed that climb vertical surfaces with similar speed. It is hypothesized that the pre-incidence angle of the legs, commonly referred to as sprawl angle, for these robotic platforms can significantly affect vertical velocities, efficiency, and stability as well as passively controlling body oscillations. To date, little empirical work has been conducted on the effect of sprawl angle and wall inclination on the performance of dynamic climbing platforms. This paper presents initial research utilizing a biologically inspired dynamical climbing platform to understand the effect of sprawl angle and wall inclination on dynamic climbing. Simulations have shown that a sprawl angle of 30 • maximizes vertical velocity overall, while experimental results show that a sprawl angle of approximately 10 • maximizes vertical velocity, while in both increasing sprawl angle increases lateral velocities over all wall inclinations.

Animals have demonstrated the ability to move through, across and over some of the most daunting environments on earth. This versatility and adaptability stems from their capacity to alter their locomotion dynamics and employ disparate locomotion modalities to suit the terrain at hand. As with modalities such as running, flying and swimming, dynamic climbing is commonly employed by legged animals, allowing for rapid and robust locomotion on vertical and near-vertical substrates. While recent robotic platforms have proven effective at anchoring reduced-order, dynamic climbing models, its adoption as a common modality for multi-modal, legged platforms remains nascent. In this work, we explore several of the open questions related to the physical implementation of dynamic climbing, including investigation of substrate inclinations for which dynamic climbing is suited, mitigation of destabilizing out-of-plane dynamics and improvement of attachment reliability in the presence of dynamic effects. The results from these inquiries provide several mechanisms and approaches for increasing the reliability and versatility of dynamic climbing as a dynamic legged modality. With these and other developments into legged locomotion modalities, future multi-modal platforms will begin to approach the expertise of biological creatures at moving through a complex and challenging world.

Dynamic climbing robots have shown vertical speeds that approach those of the fastest climbing animals, but to date, no work has been conducted on directional control or maneuverability while climbing for these platforms. Directional control in animals during high-speed terrestrial running utilizes altered leg kinematics and leg specialization, however, little work has been done to classify biological strategies for maneuverability in the scansorial regime. To gain insight on how alterations of leg kinematics effect maneuverability during high-speed climbing, we propose three methods for directional control and implement them on a high-speed, dynamic climbing robotic platform. These methods alter the leg kinematics of the platform through asymmetrically changing the foot placement, center of mass, and leg length. We show that heading angles of up to 37 • off of vertical are possible while only decreasing the vertical ascension rate by 20%.1 J. Dickson is with The Boeing Company in Houston, TX 77058, USA 2 J. Patel is with the This paper has supplementary downloadable material available at http: //ieeexplore.ieee.org, provided by the authors. This includes one multimedia MP4 format movie clip which shows the operation of the presented platform. This material is 1.30 MB in size.

An academic's life is acknowledged to be the one with constant pressure to publish, as well as fulfilling teaching and other tasks. Much has been written about the academic mother's experience, where professional gain is often reported to be at personal expense. Academic fathers' experiences are less explored, and usually situated within their own home countries. This article presents a qualitative narrative research of male faculty parents working in the United Arab Emirates in the Arabian Gulf. The ways in which the academic fathers “perform” fatherhood, strive to find balance in their lives, and create space for the necessary work of academic research are explored. The findings indicate that where work pressures are experienced, their home support systems (namely spousal support, but also paid domestic help) compensated for this in a way which does not appear to incur self‐sacrifice or career impact. The academic fathers generally reported feeling supported and validated by their organizations and host country.