A rolling legged robot with elliptical cylinder body

This paper presents a new idea to design a robot with an elliptical cylinder as the main body. And four legs are also used as the supports. This kind of robot has two or three modes of motion and the modes convert between each other during the process of movement. In the stage of conversion, the driving motors are inputted in a torque to make the main body roll. When the robot roll over across barriers, there has the energy transformation between Potential and Kinetic. By this way, it can reduce energy consumption. Because of the energy transformation between Potential and Kinetic, the robot can roll free after the disappearance of torque. The process of the movement is researched, especially the transformation between the two modes of movement. And the conversion stage can be summarized as four steps. The analyses have done to explain the four steps and the movement consquence for the robot legs, both the thigh and the shank, have given out. And the torque change condition during the conversion has figured out.