Reinforcement Learning-based Robust Wall Climbing Locomotion Controller in Ferromagnetic Environment

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Um, Yong, Shin, Young-Ha, Kim, Joon-Ha, Kwon, Soonpyo, Park, Hae-Won
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Um, Yong
Shin, Young-Ha
Kim, Joon-Ha
Kwon, Soonpyo
Park, Hae-Won
author_facet Um, Yong
Shin, Young-Ha
Kim, Joon-Ha
Kwon, Soonpyo
Park, Hae-Won
contents We present a reinforcement learning framework for quadrupedal wall-climbing locomotion that explicitly addresses uncertainty in magnetic foot adhesion. A physics-based adhesion model of a quadrupedal magnetic climbing robot is incorporated into simulation to capture partial contact, air-gap sensitivity, and probabilistic attachment failures. To stabilize learning and enable reliable transfer, we design a three-phase curriculum: (1) acquire a crawl gait on flat ground without adhesion, (2) gradually rotate the gravity vector to vertical while activating the adhesion model, and (3) inject stochastic adhesion failures to encourage slip recovery. The learned policy achieves a high success rate, strong adhesion retention, and rapid recovery from detachment in simulation under degraded adhesion. Compared with a model predictive control (MPC) baseline that assumes perfect adhesion, our controller maintains locomotion when attachment is intermittently lost. Hardware experiments with the untethered robot further confirm robust vertical crawling on steel surfaces, maintaining stability despite transient misalignment and incomplete attachment. These results show that combining curriculum learning with realistic adhesion modeling provides a resilient sim-to-real framework for magnetic climbing robots in complex environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_20174
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reinforcement Learning-based Robust Wall Climbing Locomotion Controller in Ferromagnetic Environment
Um, Yong
Shin, Young-Ha
Kim, Joon-Ha
Kwon, Soonpyo
Park, Hae-Won
Robotics
We present a reinforcement learning framework for quadrupedal wall-climbing locomotion that explicitly addresses uncertainty in magnetic foot adhesion. A physics-based adhesion model of a quadrupedal magnetic climbing robot is incorporated into simulation to capture partial contact, air-gap sensitivity, and probabilistic attachment failures. To stabilize learning and enable reliable transfer, we design a three-phase curriculum: (1) acquire a crawl gait on flat ground without adhesion, (2) gradually rotate the gravity vector to vertical while activating the adhesion model, and (3) inject stochastic adhesion failures to encourage slip recovery. The learned policy achieves a high success rate, strong adhesion retention, and rapid recovery from detachment in simulation under degraded adhesion. Compared with a model predictive control (MPC) baseline that assumes perfect adhesion, our controller maintains locomotion when attachment is intermittently lost. Hardware experiments with the untethered robot further confirm robust vertical crawling on steel surfaces, maintaining stability despite transient misalignment and incomplete attachment. These results show that combining curriculum learning with realistic adhesion modeling provides a resilient sim-to-real framework for magnetic climbing robots in complex environments.
title Reinforcement Learning-based Robust Wall Climbing Locomotion Controller in Ferromagnetic Environment
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.20174