Advanced motions for hexapods

Wei Cheah,Barry Lennox,Farshad Arvin,Simon Watson,Peter Green,Hassan Hakim Khalili

doi:10.1177/1729881419841537

Wei Cheah, Barry Lennox + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1729881419841537

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Abstract

Advanced motions, which utilize footholds on walls, offer considerably more opportunities for hexapods in accessing confined environment. However, there has been no research on the practical application of such motions on a hexapod. These motions are kinematically viable for the standard hexapod design with three degrees of freedom per leg but the joint requirements have yet to be identified. This article presents the motion analysis for two forms of advanced motion, wall walking and chimney walking, to study the joint requirement for executing such motions. The analysis has been verified through a series of experiments demonstrating that a hexapod with a standard design is capable of executing advanced motions.

Highlights

The advantages of legged robot locomotion over other types of propulsion have been widely discussed in the literature[1,2,3] and have inspired competitions that try to replicate real-world scenarios where legged robots could be deployed for inspection and intervention missions
The DARPA Robotics Challenge,[4] ARGOS5 and Eurathlon[6] all provide demonstration areas to test the state of the art in legged locomotion
The areas being traversed accommodate the footprint of the legged robot

Summary

Introduction

The advantages of legged robot locomotion over other types of propulsion have been widely discussed in the literature[1,2,3] and have inspired competitions that try to replicate real-world scenarios where legged robots could be deployed for inspection and intervention missions. The DARPA Robotics Challenge (natural/man-made disasters),[4] ARGOS (oil and gas refineries)[5] and Eurathlon (urban and indoor environments)[6] all provide demonstration areas to test the state of the art in legged locomotion. All of the challenges mentioned above are largely concerned with two-dimensional (2D) motion, and navigating around obstacles that are, at most, of the same scale as the robot. The areas being traversed accommodate the footprint of the legged robot. Doorways or stairwells are wider than the robot trying to navigate passed them.

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