Title :
A miniature hybrid robot propelled by legs
Author :
Birch, Matthew C. ; Quinn, Roger D. ; Hahm, Geon ; Phillips, Stephen M. ; Drennan, Barry ; Beer, Randall D. ; Yu, Xinyu ; Garverick, Steven L. ; Laksanacharoen, Sathaporn ; Pollack, Alan J. ; Ritzmann, Roy E.
Author_Institution :
Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH, USA
Abstract :
Describes the development of an autonomous hybrid micro-robot that uses legs for propulsion and support of the rear half of the body and uses a pair of wheels for support of the front half. McKibben artificial muscles actuate the legs and the compressed air that activates the actuators is generated by an on-board power plant comprising a pair of lithium batteries powering a gear motor driven air compressor. The control is also onboard in the form of a PIC that controls the actuators through four three-way valves that each consists of a pair of MEMS devices
Keywords :
feedback; feedforward; legged locomotion; microactuators; microrobots; neurocontrollers; pneumatic control equipment; recurrent neural nets; valves; MEMS devices; McKibben artificial muscles; gear motor driven air compressor; miniature hybrid robot; three-way valves; wheels; Actuators; Batteries; Leg; Legged locomotion; Lithium; Mobile robots; Muscles; Power generation; Propulsion; Wheels;
Conference_Titel :
Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2001. Proceedings. 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Maui, HI
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-6612-3
DOI :
10.1109/IROS.2001.976274
