The design, control and experiment of a high payload-weight hexapod robot

Compared with other types of legged robot, a hexapod robot is much more flexible for non-structured environment. In this paper, we developed a hexapod robot with high payload-weight ratio. Inspired by an ant, which can carry things much heavier than itself, we defined a design criterion for a hexapod robot, considering the maximal payload mass and its own mass. We called it payload-weight ratio, i.e. the ratio of the maximal payload mass and the robot mass. Based on the definition above, we derived the objective function to be optimized from the view of dynamic behaviors. Given the constraint conditions, including the drive torque of each joint, and the workspace of each leg, the kinematic structure and parameters were optimized. Then, a robot prototype was manufactured using the optimized results. The control system, including an embedded controller and a human-robot interaction system based on the ROS (Robot Operating System) was also developed. At last, the experiments of typical cases were conducted to verified the design and control of the high payload-weight hexapod robot.