To verify the advantages of using powder-filled blocks when considering stair-climbing
safety and reliability, the stair-climbing crawler (Yoneda et al., 2001) as shown in Figure 24
was developed. The climber has a total length of 1180 mm, a width of 830 mm and a weight
of 65 kg, including the batteries. This vehicle has a maximum speed of 500 mm s-1 and the
batteries have a lifespan of 45 min.
To verify the abilities of the developed stair-climbing crawler with powder-filled belts,
comparison experiments between a crawler with powder-filled belts, a crawler with
grouser-attached tracks (Figure 29) and a crawler with urethane rubber blocks (Figure 30)
were performed. The stairs used in these experiments have steps of 270 mm in length and
150 mm in height having R2 edges that are sharper than ordinary stairs.