Navigation and Gait Planning for Planar Walker

Locomotion and navigation of a surface walking/climbing robot – Planar Walker, based on a novel planar 8-bar mechanism are investigated. The robot moves on a surface through decoupled transverse gaits and turning gaits with finite lengths and finite rotation angles. Motions of the gaits are modeled using planar rigid motion group SE(2). Three point-to-point navigation methods are developed for various situations: Simple Line of Sight (SLS) algorithm, Simulated Annealing Accurate Planning (SAAP) algorithm, and Localized Hybrid Accurate Planning (LHAP) algorithm. Computer simulation shows that SAAP produces accurate gait sequences and LHAP saves computation time and resources for long-range targets. However, experimental results show that the inherent positional errors in individual gait movements can be substantial when accumulated and can render a particular algorithm less effective.