The effectiveness of a legged robot’s gait is highly dependent on the ground cover of the terrain the robot is traversing. It is therefore advantageous for a legged robot to adapt its behaviour to suit the environment. In order to achieve this, the robot must be able to detect and classify the type of ground cover it is traversing. We present a novel approach for ground cover classification tha...

Minimization of energy expenditure in autonomous mobile robots for industrial and service applications is a topic of huge importance, as it is the best way of lengthening mission time without modifying the power supply. This paper presents a method to minimize the energy consumption of a hexapod robot on irregular terrain. An energy-consumption model is derived for statically stable gaits befor...

Dmitri is a hexapod robot designed to explore biologically influenced behaviors, manufactured using 3D printing. The use of 3D printing results in not only rapid turnaround time of the physical components, but helps to evaluate software or simulation. Biologically inspired robots may involve complex shapes to correctly mimic biology, and such designs are only economically feasible through the u...

This paper studies the dynamics of foot–ground interaction in hexapod locomotion systems. For that objective the robot motion is characterized in terms of several locomotion variables and the ground is modelled through a non-linear springdashpot system, with parameters based on the studies of soil mechanics. Moreover, it is adopted an algorithm with footforce feedback to control the robot locom...

This paper presents a pronking controller for our six-legged robot RHex. Development of the controller begins with a passive-dynamics approach, ensuring that the robot is naturally suited to running. Running with flight phase is then achieved using only proprioceptive (joint angle sensing only) feedback for touchdown detection and for tracking fixed joint reference trajectories. Body pitch osci...

The metachronal wave is a gait used by most terrestrial arthropods. Each leg only lifts when the leg behind it is on the ground in position to support the animal’s weight. The wave starts from the back as the hind leg lifts and is transferred forward as each leg in turn lifts. At its fastest, it is the tripod gait. In its slowest smooth movement form, only one leg at a time is lifted on each si...

This paper describes several methods for evaluation of kinematic parameters of a Stewart platform. One of those methods is the calculation of workspace area both in numerical and graphical form. The second method allows us to analyze and estimate inherent mechanism errors that occur due to actuator errors, elastic and thermal deformations and other error sources. Furthermore, another procedure ...

This paper studies the performance of a Fractional Order controller in a hexapod robot with joint leg actuators having saturation. For that objective the robot prescribed motion is characterized in terms of several locomotion variables. Moreover, two indices measure the walking performance based on the mean absolute density of energy per travelled distance and on the hip trajectory errors. A se...

While navigating their environments it is essential for autonomous mobile robots to actively avoid collisions with obstacles. Flying insects perform this behavioural task with ease relying mainly on information the visual system provides. Here we implement a bioinspired collision avoidance algorithm based on the extraction of nearness information from visual motion on the hexapod walking robot ...

Current work on the motion planning of a Hexapod walking machine design is described here. The control system has a multi-processor architecture and research is conducted on hardware design structure as well as software functional decomposition. An inter-process cooperation between the processes utilizing client-server relation is employed. A motion generator is implemented that transforms moti...