Climbing and Walking Robots

With the advancement of technology, new exciting approaches enable us to render mobile robotic systems more versatile, robust and cost-efficient. Some researchers combine climbing and walking techniques with a modular approach, a reconfigurable approach, or a swarm approach to realize novel prototypes as flexible mobile robotic platforms featuring all necessary locomotion capabilities. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of the latest wide-range achievements in climbing and walking robotic technology to researchers, scientists, and engineers throughout the world. Different aspects including control simulation, locomotion realization, methodology, and system integration are presented from the scientific and from the technical point of view. This book consists of two main parts, one dealing with walking robots, the second with climbing robots. The content is also grouped by theoretical research and applicative realization. Every chapter offers a considerable amount of interesting and useful information

The OmniTread OT-4 serpentine robot—design and performance

Serpentine robots are slender, multi-segmented vehicles designed to provide greater mobility than conventional mobile robots. Serpentine robots are ideally suited for urban search and rescue, military intelligence gathering, and inspection tasks in hazardous or inaccessible environments. One such serpentine robot, developed at the University of Michigan, is the “OmniTread OT-4.” The OT-4 comprises seven segments, which are linked to each other by six joints. The OT-4 can climb over obstacles that are much higher than the robot itself, propel itself inside pipes of different diameters, and traverse difficult terrain, such as rocks or the rubble of a collapsed structure. The foremost and unique design characteristic of the OT-4 is the use of pneumatic bellows to actuate the joints. The pneumatic bellows allow the simultaneous control of position and stiffness for each joint. Controllable stiffness is important in serpentine robots, which require stiff joints to cross gaps and compliant joints to conform to rough terrain for effective propulsion. Another unique feature of the OmniTread design is the coverage of all four sides of each segment with drive tracks. This design makes the robot indifferent to rollovers, which are bound to happen when the slender bodies of serpentine robots travel over rugged terrain. This paper describes the OmniTread concept and some of its technical features in some detail. In the Experiment Results Section, photographs of successful obstacle traverses illustrate the abilities of the OT-4. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/56171/1/20196_ftp.pd

New Approaches in Automation and Robotics

The book New Approaches in Automation and Robotics offers in 22 chapters a collection of recent developments in automation, robotics as well as control theory. It is dedicated to researchers in science and industry, students, and practicing engineers, who wish to update and enhance their knowledge on modern methods and innovative applications. The authors and editor of this book wish to motivate people, especially under-graduate students, to get involved with the interesting field of robotics and mechatronics. We hope that the ideas and concepts presented in this book are useful for your own work and could contribute to problem solving in similar applications as well. It is clear, however, that the wide area of automation and robotics can only be highlighted at several spots but not completely covered by a single book

Design and Analysis of Exaggerated Rectilinear Gait-Based Snake-Inspired Robots

Snake-inspired locomotion is much more maneuverable compared to conventional locomotion concepts and it enables a robot to navigate through rough terrain. A rectilinear gait is quite flexible and has the following benefits: functionality on a wide variety of terrains, enables a highly stable robot platform, and provides pure undulatory motion without passive wheels. These benefits make rectilinear gaits especially suitable for search and rescue applications. However, previous robot designs utilizing rectilinear gaits were slow in speed and required considerable vertical motion. This dissertation will explore the development and implementation of a new exaggerated rectilinear gait that which will enable high speed locomotion and more efficient operation in a snake-inspired robot platform. The exaggerated rectilinear gait will emulate the natural snake's rectilinear gait to gain the benefit a snake's terrain adaptability, but the sequence and range of joint motion will be greatly exaggerated to achieve higher velocities to support robot speeds within the range of human walking speed. The following issues will be investigated in this dissertation. First, this dissertation will address the challenge of developing a snake-inspired robot capable of executing exaggerated rectilinear gaits. To successfully execute the exaggerated rectilinear gait, a snake-inspired robot platform must be able to perform high speed linear expansion/contraction and pivoting motions between segments. In addition to high speed joint motion, the new mechanical architecture much also incorporate a method for providing positive traction during gait execution. Second, a new exaggerated gait dynamics model will be developed using well established kinematics and dynamics analysis techniques. In addition to the exaggerated rectilinear gaits which emphasize high speed, a set of exaggerated rectilinear gaits which emphasize high traction will also be developed for application on difficult terrain types. Finally, an exaggerated rectilinear that emphasizes energy efficiency is defined and analyzed. This dissertation provides the foundations for realizing a high speed limbless locomotion capable of meeting the needs of the search, rescue, and recovery applications