Walking Robots with Six Legs (Hexapod)

z Most popular because static stable walking possible, reducing the

control complexity

z The human guided hexapod of Ohio State University

¾ Maximum Speed: 2.3 m/s
¾ Weight: 3.2 t
¾ Height: 3 m
¾ Length: 5.2 m
¾ No. of legs: 6
¾ DOF in total: 6*3
Walking Robots with Six Legs (Hexapod)
z Lauron II,
University of Karlsruhe
¾ Maximum Speed: 0.5 m/s
¾ Weight: 6 kg
¾ Height: 0.3 m
¾ Length: 0.7 m
¾ No. of legs: 6
¾ DOF in total: 6*3
¾ Power Consumption: 10 W
Still a long way to go
z The legged robots have made much progress, primarily due to
advances in motor design
z However, they are still far away to reach the level of their biological

equivalents.
¾ Actuation systems that approach the efficiency of animal muscles
¾ Energy storage with the energy densities
 Wheeled Mobile Robot Locomotion
z Classification of wheels
¾ Fixed wheel
¾ Centered orientable wheel
¾ Off-centered orientable wheel
¾ Swedish wheel

z Mobile Robot Locomotion

¾ Differential Drive
¾ Steered wheels (tricycle, bicycles, wagon)
¾ Synchronous Drive
¾ Omni-directional
¾ Ackerman Steering
Mobile Robots with Wheels
z Wheels are the most appropriate solution for most applications
¾ Good efficiencies in human environments
z Three wheels are sufficient and to guarantee stability

z With more than three wheels a flexible suspension is required

z Selection of wheels depends on the application

The Four Basic Wheels Types
a) b)
z a) Standard wheel: Two degrees
of freedom; rotation around the
(motorized) wheel axle and the
contact point

z b) Castor wheel: Three degrees of

freedom; rotation around the
wheel axle, the contact point and
the castor axle
The Four Basic Wheels Types
c) d)
z c) Swedish wheel: Three degrees
of freedom; rotation around the
(motorized) wheel axle, around
the rollers and around the contact
point

z d) Ball or spherical wheel:

Suspension technically not
solved, can spin along any
direction
Characteristics of Wheeled Robots and Vehicles
z Stability of a vehicle is guaranteed with 3 wheels
¾ center of gravity is within the triangle which is formed by the ground
contact point of the wheels.
z Stability is improved by 4 or more wheels
¾ however, this arrangements are hyperstatic and require a flexible
suspension system.
z Bigger wheels allow to overcome higher obstacles
¾ but they require higher torque or reductions in the gear box.
z Most arrangements are non-holonomic (see chapter 3)
¾ require high control effort
z Combining actuation and steering on one wheel makes the design
complex and adds additional errors for odometry.
Different Arrangements of Wheels I
Unpowered std wheel
z Two wheels

z Three wheels Unpowered Motorized

Omnidirectional wheel std wheel

Motorized swedish wheel

Omnidirectional Drive Synchro Drive

Different Arrangements of Wheels II
z Four wheels

z Six wheels
Maneuverability and Controllability
z Generally, an inverse correlation between controllability and
maneuverability
¾ Omni directional designs: more maneuverability (greater DOF),
however, it requires significant control processing to convert desired
rotational and translational velocities to individual wheel commands.

z Controlling an omni directional robot for a specific direction of travel

is also more difficult and often less accurate when compared to less
maneuverable designs.

z There is no “ideal” drive configuration that simultaneously maximize

stability, maneuverability, and controllability.
¾ Application dependent
Synchro Drive
z All wheels are actuated
synchronously by one motor
¾ defines the speed of the vehicle
z All wheels steered synchronously
Dead reckoning:
Synchro drive systems are
superior to true omnidirectional
config but inferior to differential
drive

by a second motor
¾ sets the heading of the vehicle
z The orientation in space of the

robot frame will always remain the

same
¾ It is therefore not possible to
control the orientation of the
robot frame.
Tribolo, Omnidirectional Drive with 3 Spheric Wheels

z Three spherical wheels, each actuated by one motor

z The spherical wheels are suspended by three contact points: two given by spherical
bearings and one by a wheel connected to the motor axle
z Provides excellent maneuverability and is simple in design
 Uranus, CMU: Omnidirectional Drive with 4 Wheels
z Movement in the plane has 3 DOF
¾ thus only three wheels can be
independently controlled
¾ It might be better to arrange three
swedish wheels in a triangle
Caterpillar
z Skid is used to reorient the robot
by spinning wheels that are
facing the same direction at
different speeds or in opposite
directions.
z This can significantly improve

their maneuverability in loose

terrains
z The disadvantage of such

configuration is coupled to the

skid steering. The NANOKHOD II, developed by von
Hoerner & Sulger GmbH and Max Planck
Institute, Mainz for European Space
Agency (ESA) will probably go to Mars
SHRIMP, a Mobile Robot with Excellent Climbing
Abilities

z Objective
¾ Passive locomotion
concept for
rough terrain
z Results: The Shrimp
¾ 6 wheels
o one fixed wheel in the rear
o two boogies on each side
o one front wheel with spring suspension
¾ robot sizing around 60 cm in length and 20 cm in height
¾ highly stable in rough terrain
¾ overcomes obstacles up to 2 times its wheel diameter
The Personal Rover

z A dedicated motor drives thé swinging boom to change the front/rear

weight distribution in order to facilitate step-climbing.
z A control loop must explicitly decide how to move the boom during a

climbing scenarios.
Future

z We expect to see a great number of unique, hybrid mobile robots that

draw together advantages from several of the underlying locomotion
mechanisms that we have discussed.

z Your contributions?
Homework #1: Project Preparation
z Install your own selected robot
simulator into your computer,
and run some examples provided
with the simulator.
z HW submission:

¾ Explain your simulator, run

1-2 examples, and provide
some snapshots of the
examples and explain.
z Major focus of the project should

be robot localization, robot

navigation, and multi-robot
cooperation and coordination, or
your own creative ideas.
Project Options I
z Heterogeneous Teams of Modular Robots for Mapping and
Exploration
¾ Design of a team of Heterogeneous robots of various sizes and
capabilities
¾ Team collaboration to map and explore unknown environments
z Dynamic Mission Planning for multiple mobile robots
¾ Goal: Coordinate the actions of multiple robots to achieve a goal.
¾ Dynamically reassign goals to robots as information about the
environment is updated.
¾ Handle multiple robots, multiple goals, and dynamic environments.
z Biological Inspired behavior control for multiple mobile robots
¾ Bees, ants, birds, etc.
¾ Design a distributed control algorithm to achieve global optimization
Project Options II
z Learning in mobile robot systems
¾ Learning numerical functions for calibrations or parameter
adjustments
¾ Learning about the world
¾ Learning to coordinate behaviors
¾ Learning new behaviors
z Polymorphic Robots
¾ Build a modular robot out of many homogeneous “building block”
robots
¾ Flexible like heterogeneous teams
¾ Maintainable like homogeneous teams
¾ Ultimate goal: reconfigurable robots, inter-robot reconfiguration
z Your own ideas: more creative ideas are extremely welcome
Some Journals and Conferences
z IEEE Transaction on Robotics (Journal )
z Autonomous Robots (Journal)

z International Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Journal)

z IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

(Conference, every year, for example ICRA 2007, ICRA 2008…)

z IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligence Robots and

Systems (Conference, every year, IROS 2007, IROS 2008, .)