Inchworm Robot Design

The Inchworm Climber is a design project focused on the engineering, validation, and simulation of a 2-link robotic climber, aiming to create all plans necessary for plug-and-play assembly using a mixture of COTS and custom components.

A naive motion-planning algorithm was created for an arbitrary path. I owned all aspects of this project. Designs were completed in Autodesk Fusion, and validation sims were created and performed in MATLAB.

Outcomes

• Full CAD and circuitry Design in Autodesk Fusion
• Proved feasibility of design and operation using custom scripting.
• Creation of naive motion control algorithm for arbitrary path profiles from -90° to 90°
• Published a comprehensive final report (Google Slides).

Skills Demonstrated

• Mechanical Design & Motion Analysis. Developed rigid inchworm robot kinematics, optimized link lengths, and calculated joint torques for quasi-static locomotion.
• Embedded Systems and Electronics. Created hypothetical circuitry design for ESP32-based tethered design.-
• CAD & Simulation Verification. Modeled full assembly in CAD, implemented 2D custom IK solver, and verified motion and component performance.