Mechatronic Design of Mobile Robots for Stable Obstacle Crossing at Low and High Speeds

This chapter presents recent mechatronics developments to create original terrestrial mobile robots capable of crossing obstacles and maintaining their stability on irregular grounds. Obstacle crossing is both considered at low and high speeds. The developed robots use wheeled propulsion, efficient on smooth grounds, and improve performance on irregular grounds with additional mobilities, bringing them closer to legged locomotion (hybrid locomotion). Two sections are dedicated to low speed obstacle crossing. Section two presents an original mobile robot combining four actuated wheels with an articulated frame to improve obstacle climbing. Section three extends this work to a new concept of modular poly-robot for agile transport of long payloads. The last two sections deal with high-speed motion. Section four describes new suspensions with four mobilities that maintain pitch stability of vehicles crossing obstacles at high speed. After the shock, section five demonstrates stable pitch control during ballistic phase by accelerating-braking the wheels in flight. Mechatronic Design of Mobile Robots for Stable Obstacle Crossing at Low and High Speeds