Design and Analysis of a Multi-Legged Robot with Pitch Adjustive Units

The paper proposes a novel multi-legged robot with pitch adjustive units aiming at obstacle surmounting.With only 6 degrees of freedom,the robot with 16 mechanical legs walks steadily and surmounts the obstacles on the complex terrain.The leg unit with adjustive pitch provides a large workspace and empowers the legs to climb up obstacles in large sizes,which enhances the obstacle surmounting capability.The pitch adjustment in leg unit requires as few independent adjusting actuators as possible.Based on the kinematic analysis of the mechanical leg,the biped and quadruped leg units with adjustive pitch are analyzed and compared.The configuration of the robot is designed to obtain a compact structure and pragmatic performance.The uncertainty of the obstacle size and position in the surmounting process is taken into consideration and the parameters of the adjustments and the feasible strategies for obstacle surmounting are presented.Then the 3D virtual model and the robot prototype are built and the multi-body dynamic simulations and prototype experiments are carried out.The results from the simulations and the experiments show that the robot possesses good obstacle surmounting capabilities.

Kinematics and Dynamics Analysis of a Quadruped Walking Robot with Parallel Leg Mechanism

It is desired to require a walking robot for the elderly and the disabled to have large capacity,high stiffness,stability,etc.However,the existing walking robots cannot achieve these requirements because of the weight-payload ratio and simple function.Therefore,Improvement of enhancing capacity and functions of the walking robot is an important research issue.According to walking requirements and combining modularization and reconfigurable ideas,a quadruped/biped reconfigurable walking robot with parallel leg mechanism is proposed.The proposed robot can be used for both a biped and a quadruped walking robot.The kinematics and performance analysis of a 3-UPU parallel mechanism which is the basic leg mechanism of a quadruped walking robot are conducted and the structural parameters are optimized.The results show that performance of the walking robot is optimal when the circumradius R,r of the upper and lower platform of leg mechanism are 161.7 mm,57.7 mm,respectively.Based on the optimal results,the kinematics and dynamics of the quadruped walking robot in the static walking mode are derived with the application of parallel mechanism and influence coefficient theory,and the optimal coordination distribution of the dynamic load for the quadruped walking robot with over-determinate inputs is analyzed,which solves dynamic load coupling caused by the branches’ constraint of the robot in the walk process.Besides laying a theoretical foundation for development of the prototype,the kinematics and dynamics studies on the quadruped walking robot also boost the theoretical research of the quadruped walking and the practical applications of parallel mechanism.

Topology Search of 3-DOF Translational Parallel Manipulators with Three Identical Limbs for Leg Mechanisms

Three-degree of freedom（3-DOF） translational parallel manipulators（TPMs） have been widely studied both in industry and academia in the past decades. However, most architectures of 3-DOF TPMs are created mainly on designers＇ intuition, empirical knowledge, or associative reasoning and the topology synthesis researches of 3-DOF TPMs are still limited. In order to find out the atlas of designs for 3-DOF TPMs, a topology search is presented for enumeration of 3-DOF TPMs whose limbs can be modeled as 5-DOF serial chains. The proposed topology search of 3-DOF TPMs is aimed to overcome the sensitivities of the design solution of a 3-DOF TPM for a LARM leg mechanism in a biped robot. The topology search, which is based on the concept of generation and specialization in graph theory, is reported as a step-by-step procedure with desired specifications, principle and rules of generalization, design requirements and constraints, and algorithm of number synthesis. In order to obtain new feasible designs for a chosen example and to limit the search domain under general considerations, one topological generalized kinematic chain is chosen to be specialized. An atlas of new feasible designs is obtained and analyzed for a specific solution as leg mechanisms. The proposed methodology provides a topology search for 3-DOF TPMs for leg mechanisms, but it can be also expanded for other applications and tasks.

Development and Analysis of a Closed-Chain Wheel-Leg Mobile Platform

Current research concerning legged platforms and wheeled platforms primarily focuses on terrain adaptive capability and speed capability,respectively.Compared with wheeled platforms,legged platforms with a closed-chain mechanism still present deficiencies regarding speed ability.To integrate the advantages of these two types of platforms,a wheel-leg mobile platform with two modes based on a closed-chain mechanism is proposed.First,a closed-chain mechanism that generates a high-knee trajectory in legged mode is designed and analyzed based on kinematic analysis.To improve the platform’s obstacle-surmounting performance,the dimensional parameters of the closedchain mechanism are optimized and the design requirements for the platform’s frame are analyzed.In addition,the particular structure of the leg group is designed to realize transformation between legged mode and wheeled mode.The mobility of the constructed platform is calculated through an obstacle-surmounting probability analysis.The performances of the two motion modes are analyzed and compared by conducting dynamic simulations.Finally,experiments are carried out to verify both the theoretical analyses and the prototype performance.This study proposes a new approach to designing wheel-leg platforms with prominent speed ability and mobility based on a closed-chain mechanism.

The Kinematics and Force Analysis of a New Leg Mechanism for Multi-legged Wall-Climbing Robot

This paper presents a new kind of leg mechanism with which the wall climbing robot can easily perform the ground to wall transition by itself.To get its walking envelope and limit position,the forward/inverse kinematics and the statics of the mechanism are solved.All of these lay the foundation for ground to wall transition gait programing,mechanism parameter selection and optimization.

Development of a Leg Mechanism for Soft Landing Based on Biological Motion

With jumping mechanisms,soft landing motion is important to protect loads and the mechanisms.This study proposes a leg mechanism for soft landing based on biological motion.Human jumping motion with a load suggests a unique motion for soft landing.The landing model consists of two periods.Jerk is minimized in the first period and force is minimized in the second period.In comparison with other landing models,this model is specialized for soft landing motion protecting an objective part.Given all mechanisms have mass,such model is useful in practical application.For the purpose of realizing soft landing motion,this study proposes a new leg mechanism.The mechanism achieves quick variable transmission with cam and wire.Design process of the cam is explained with dynamics and computation.With the calculated cam shape,the leg mechanism can be driven by constant input voltage for simple control.Robustness against height change is also verified with landing simulation.With 50mm falling experiment,prototype leg mechanism performed soft landing without bounce motion and large sound.The acceleration profile of the body also agrees with the proposed soft landing model.

Trajectory tracking control of the bionic joint of the musculoskeletal leg mechanism

Pneumatic artificial muscles(PAMs) have properties similar to biological muscles,which are widely used in robotics as actuators.It is difficult to achieve high-precision position control for robotics system driven by PAMs.A 3-DOF musculoskeletal bionic leg mechanism is presented,which is driven by PAMs for quadruped robots.PAM is used to simulate the compliance of biological muscle.The kinematics of the leg swing is derived,and the foot desired trajectory is planned as the sinusoidal functions.The swing experiments of the musculoskeletal leg mechanism are conducted to analyse the extension and flexion of joints.A proportional integral derivative(PID) algorithm is presented for controlling the flexion/extension of the joint.The trajectory tracking results of joints and the PAM gas pressure are obtained.Experimental results show that the developed leg mechanism exhibits good biological properties.

Bionic Design and Simulation Analysis of Energy⁃Efficient and Vibration⁃Damping Walking Mechanism

African ostrich can run for 30 min at a speed of 60 km/h in the desert,and its hindlimb has excellent energy saving and vibration damping performance.In order to realize the energy⁃efficient and vibration⁃damping design of the leg mechanism of the legged robot,the principle of engineering bionics was applied.According to the passive rebound characteristic of the intertarsal joint of the ostrich foot and the characteristic of variable output stiffness of the ostrich hindlimb,combined with the proportion and size of the structure of the ostrich hindlimb,the bionic rigid⁃flexible composite legged robot single⁃leg structure was designed.The locomotion of the bionic mechanical leg was simulated by means of ADAMS.Through the motion simulation analysis,the influence of the change of the inner spring stiffness coefficient within a certain range on the vertical acceleration of the body centroid and the motor power consumption was studied,and the optimal stiffness coefficient of the inner spring was obtained to be 200 N/mm,and it was further verified that the inner and outer spring mechanism could effectively reduce the energy consumption of the mechanical leg.Simulation results show that the inner and outer spring mechanism could effectively reduce the motor energy consumption by about 72.49%.

Design of a novel side-mounted leg mechanism with high flexibility for a multi-mission quadruped earth rover BJTUBOT

Earth rover is a class of emerging wheeled-leg robots for nature exploration.At present,few methods for these robots’leg design utilize a side-mounted spatial parallel mechanism.Thus,this paper presents a complete design process of a novel 5-degree-of-freedom(5-DOF)hybrid leg mechanism for our quadruped earth rover BJTUBOT.First,a general approach is proposed for constructing the novel leg mechanism.Subsequently,by evaluating the basic locomotion task(LT)of the rover based on screw theory,we determine the desired motion characteristic of the sidemounted leg and carry out its two feasible configurations.With regard to the synthesis method of the parallel mechanism,a family of concise hybrid leg mechanisms using the 6-DOF limbs and an L1F1C limb(which can provide a constraint force and a couple)is designed.In verifying the motion characteristics of this kind of leg,we select a typical(3-UPRU&RRRR)&R mechanism and then analyze its kinematic model,singularities,velocity mapping,workspace,dexterity,statics,and kinetostatic performance.Furthermore,the virtual quadruped rover equipped with this innovative leg mechanism is built.Various basic and specific LTs of the rover are demonstrated by simulation,which indicates that the flexibility of the legs can help the rover achieve multitasking.

Application of Parallel Mechanism in Varistructured Quadruped/Biped Human-carrying Walking Chair Robot

For the existing problems of walking chair robot such as simple function,lower bearing capacity and not walking in complex environment,a novel varistructured quadruped / biped human-carrying walking chair robot is proposed.The proposed robot could be used as biped and quadruped walking chair robots.Considering the conversion of the walking chair robot from the quadruped to the biped or vice versa,6-UPS and 2-UPS＋UP（U,P and S are universal joint,the prismatic pair,and sphere joint,respectively） parallel mechanisms are selected as the leg mechanism of the biped walking robot and quadruped walking robot,respectively.Combining the screw theory and theory of mechanism,the degrees of freedom of the leg mechanism and the body mechanism in diferent motion states are computed so as to meet the requirements of mechanism design.The motion characteristics of the 2-UPS＋UP parallel mechanism which is the key part of the walking chair robot are analyzed.Then,the workspace of the moving platform is drawn and the efect of the structural parameters on the workspace volume is studied.Finally,it is found that the volume of the workspace of the moving platform is bigger when the side length ratio and the vertex angle ratio of the fxed platform and the moving platform which are isosceles triangles are close to 1.This study provides a theoretical foundation for the prototype development.