Abstract
The paper presents an innovative hexapod walking robot built with 3-UPU parallel mechanism. In the robot, the parallel mechanism is used as both an actuator to generate walking and also a connecting body to connect two groups of three legs, thus enabling the robot to walk with simple gait by very few motors. In this paper, forward and inverse kinematics solutions are obtained. The workspace of the parallel mechanism is analyzed using limit boundary search method. The walking stability of the robot is analyzed, which yields the robot’s maximum step length. The gait planning of the hexapod walking robot is studied for walking on both flat and uneven terrains. The new robot, combining the advantages of parallel robot and walking robot, has a large carrying capacity, strong passing ability, flexible turning ability, and simple gait control for its deployment for uneven terrains.
Highlights
Legged robots have advantages over the wheeled robots in their flexibility of movement and the adaptability of the environment
We briefly describe the kinematics of 3-UPU parallel mechanism, upon which the locomotion kinematics is developed
The simulation shows that the robot can walk over the ditch stably, with the stability margin displaying simulation shows that the robot can walk over the ditch stably, with the stability margin displaying
Summary
Legged robots have advantages over the wheeled robots in their flexibility of movement and the adaptability of the environment. Winkler et al [30,31] developed trajectory planning for legged locomotion that automatically determines the gait sequence, step timings, footholds, swing-leg motions, and six-dimensional body motion over rough terrain, without any additional modules. Zhao et al [33] developed a motion generation approach for a hexapod robot Octopus-III to control the robot to walk along the planned trajectory. The paper presents a hexapod walking robot designed with a 3-UPU parallel mechanism, aiming. The new design is characterized by alternating motion between the two platforms of the 3-UPU parallel mechanism to realize robot walking.
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