There has been much interest in designing robots that are agile enough to navigate through tight spaces. This ability could be useful in assessing disaster zones or pipelines, for example.
But, choosing the right design is crucial to success in such applications.
“Though legged robots are very promising for use in real-world applications, it is still challenging for them to operate in narrow spaces,” explains Qing Shi, a Professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “Large quadruped robots cannot enter narrow spaces, while micro quadruped robots can enter the narrow spaces but face difficulty in performing tasks owing to their limited ability to carry heavy loads.”
https://spectrum.ieee.org/robotic-rat-climbs-crawls-turns#toggle-gdpr
