Abstract: Stair climbing is one of critical issues for field robots to
widen applicable areas. This paper presents optimal design on
kinematic parameters of a new robotic platform for stair climbing. The
robotic platform climbs various stairs by body flip locomotion with
caterpillar type main platform. Kinematic parameters such as platform
length, platform height, and caterpillar rotation speed are optimized to
maximize stair climbing stability. Three types of stairs are used to
simulate typical user conditions. The optimal design process is
conducted based on Taguchi methodology, and resulting parameters
with optimized objective function are presented. In near future, a
prototype is assembled for real environment testing.