IITians present a robot capable of climbing stairs

A team of four B.Tech students from IIT Kanpur have been successful in developing a robot called ‘Transformer’ which has a unique ability to change its height. The robot can perform a number of tasks which other robots are unable to do. Another unique feature of it is that the chassis has been made of ply coated with fibre glass for making it light and durable. This robot can climb stairs which normally other robots are unable to do.

The four students involved in the project are Yogesh Kumar, Ayush Poddar, Anirban Manna and Harshit Lathi. This robot can change its orientation according to environment such as crossing through narrow passage, climbing a slope and crawling on a rough surface.

Ayush said that the project was completed during the summer camp this year. He added, “This robot can crawl if required. In future, it can be developed further. Its functions can be increased by feeding more algorithms.”

The team was planning to install sensors on ‘Transformer’ to provide it artificial intelligence. This will make the robot more automatic and will help to plan its actions. The team will work on it in the next stage.

For the first time to make the chassis of the robot, ply coated with fibre glass was used.

The robot has four legs and each leg consists of one DC motor and four servos. Each leg has four degrees of freedom which makes it capable of transforming. This robot is controlled via Arduino Mega (CPU) and it is driven by using a bluetooth module.

The robot can also lift load and carry it to the designated place. Visuals around the robot can be seen through the camera installed on it. The robot can be used for spying and can be used on different terrain like desert and jungle.