Proposal for semiautonomous centipede-like robot for rubble — Development of an actual scale robot and validation of its mobility

In this study, we develop a multi-legged robot that is designed to operate on rubble. Generally, conventional multi-legged robots have many actuators for driving the legs and body. Hence, control of these robots is more complicated than that of crawler robots such as tank robots, and it is very difficult to operate multi-legged robots adaptively in a complex environment such as that containing rubble. To solve this problem, we have designed a mechanism for a multi-legged robot that reduces the controller load by using a passive mechanism. To design the robot, we focused on a centipede. First, we observed the behavior of a centipede by using a high-speed camera, and then, to realize this behavior by a simple mechanism, we proposed a multi-legged robot that was built by connecting many links serially through rubber joints. In this mechanism, every joint has a leg on each side, and the legs move regularly like a centipede. The elasticity of the rubber joints compensates for the bumps on the ground. To control the moving direction, wires are installed through the links, and by pulling the wires, the front of body of the robot can be lifted up or turned. By simply pulling the wires, we can control the moving direction of the robot; therefore, we do not have to control many joints individually to overcome bumps. The joints can move passively to adapt to bumps. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism, we developed an actual-scale prototype robot and conducted experiments. The results showed that the robot can move on rubble to desired positions.