Design and motion analysis of reconfigurable wheel-legged mobile robot

Abstract

An adaptive wheel-legged shape reconfigurable mobile robot, based on a scissor-like mechanism, is proposed for an obstacle detecting and surmounting robot, moving on complex terrain. The robot can dynamically adjust its own shape, according to the environment, realizing a transformation of wheel shape into leg shape and vice versa. Each wheel-legged mechanism has one degree of freedom, which means that only the relative motion of the inner and outer discs is needed to achieve the transformation of the shape into a wheel or a leg. First, the force analysis of the conversion process of the wheel-legged mechanism is carried out, while the relationship between the driving torque and the friction factor in the non-conversion trigger stage and in the conversion trigger stage is obtained. The results showed that the shape conversion can be better realized by increasing the friction factor of the trigger point. Next, the kinematics analysis of the robot, including climbing the obstacles, stairs and gully, is carried out. The motion of the spokes tip is obtained, in order to derive the folding ratio and the surmountable obstacle height of the wheel-legged mechanism. The parameters of the wheel-legged structure are optimized, to obtain better stability and obstacle climbing ability. Finally, a dynamic simulation model is established by ADAMS, to verify the obstacle climbing performance and gait rationality of the robot, in addition to a prototype experiment. The results showed that the surmountable obstacle height of the robot is about 3.05 times the spoke radius. The robot has the stability of a traditional wheel mechanism and the obstacle surmount performance of a leg mechanism, making it more suitable for field reconnaissance and exploration missions.