Platonic beasts: Spherically symmetric multilimbed robots

We describe a new class of spherically symmetric, high degree of freedom robots called “platonic beasts.” A robot in this family is kinematically equivalent to a symmetric polyhedron, such as one of the Platonic solids, with identical multi-purpose limbs attached to its vertices. The symmetry and regularity of the design have several advantages including robustness to toppling, novel gaits such as the rolling gait, and fault tolerance. We describe the design and programming of a prototype platonic beast robot that we have built in our lab. The robot has four limbs, each with three degrees of freedom, and is controlled by a network of four embedded 32-bit microcontrollers. We also discuss the general features of these robots, including locomotion using the rolling gait and the implications of its novel features.