A bio-inspired hexapod robot with noncircular gear transmission system

Author

Huang, Ke-Jung ; Chen, Shen-Chiang ; Tsai, Meng-Ching ; Liang, Fnag-Yu ; Hsueh, Ya-Hsun ; Lin, Pei-Chun

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. Eng., Nat. Taiwan Univ. (NTU), Taipei, Taiwan

fYear

2012

fDate

11-14 July 2012

Firstpage

33

Lastpage

38

Abstract

We report on the design and implementation of a simple bio-inspired hexapod driven by a single motor. Aiming for generating the dynamic locomotion of the robot, the design is based on the motion of a spring loaded inverted pendulum (SLIP) and then expanded to the hexapod morphology. The required speed variations and phase offsets of legs are achieved by utilization of non-circular gear pairs in the transmission system. Thus, the robot can be driven by a single DC motor without control effort. The designed alternating tripod gait allows the robot to adequately negotiate with rough terrain as well as to excite dynamic running behavior. The performance of the robot is evaluated experimentally and is quantitatively compared to the SLIP model.

Keywords

DC motors; gears; legged locomotion; nonlinear control systems; pendulums; SLIP model; bio-inspired hexapod robot; dynamic robot locomotion; dynamic running behavior; hexapod morphology; noncircular gear pairs; noncircular gear transmission system; phase offsets; rough terrain; single DC motor; speed variations; spring loaded inverted pendulum; tripod gait; DC motors; Gears; Legged locomotion; Mathematical model; Robot kinematics; Springs;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), 2012 IEEE/ASME International Conference on

Conference_Location

Kachsiung

ISSN

2159-6247

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-2575-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/AIM.2012.6266042

Filename

6266042