Tethered Detachable Hook for the Spiderman Locomotion (Design of the Hook and Its Launching Winch)

This paper introduces a new concept of " tethered detachable hook (TDH) " and its launching winch. TDH system is the device which will be mounted on a mobile robot and enhances its traversability over extremely hostile terrain by launching detachable hook to nearby objects, producing large traction force by the tether and detaching/recovering the hook to the launcher again. In this paper the authors first of all introduce several prototype models of the TDH. We then discuss the design of lat-est model which features pneumatic detaching mechanism, the pneumatic launcher and the reel mechanism having three motion states; active rotation, free rotation and braking. Finally, the result of several experiments of constructed TDH model will be explained.