Amphibious Robots Locomotion Strategies in Unstructured Complex Environments: A Review

Abstract

In the previous literature, amphibious robots focused mainly on locomotion in underwater and flat land surface manoeuvring. Few amphibious robots focused on unstructured land environments. The amphibious robot designs were more emphasised in academics, leading to more work done in building amphibious robots that mimic biological amphibians, imitating the geometry and overall functionality of the amphibious robots. Developing amphibious robots with propulsive mechanisms for manoeuvring in a water environment received more attention than other functionalities like adaptability on rough natural terrain and obstacle repositioning capability. However, practical applications like reconnaissance and surveying posed challenges in the ground environment, which had unstructured and complex terrain profiles, especially in the transition area. Therefore, reviewing the amphibious robots focused on manoeuvring complex uneven surfaces was essential. The literature had comprehensive review papers on navigation strategies encompassing manoeuvring on flat ground surfaces and underwater locomotion. There was a need for a focused study that highlighted the amphibious robot that manoeuvred in an unstructured land environment. The open challenges and recent solutions by designing new mechanisms and deployment issues were highlighted and reviewed. Hence, the paper addressed a more specific review of amphibious robot locomotion in an unstructured environment. The paper also discussed a case study of an amphibious robot capable of locomotion in unstructured environments. It was envisaged that the review would provide directions and insights to researchers and robotic system designers on developing robust propulsive mechanisms for amphibious robots capable of locomotion in unstructured environments.Keywords: manoeuvrability, mobility, terrain, unified locomotion, mechanism, propulsion