Free-Standing Leaping Experiments with a Power-Autonomous, Elastic-Spined Quadruped

We document initial experiments with Canid, a freestanding, power-autonomous quadrupedal robot equipped with a parallel actuated elastic spine. Research into robotic bounding and galloping platforms holds scientific and engineering interest because it can both probe biological hypotheses regarding bounding and galloping mammals and also provide the engineering community with a new class of agile, efficient and rapidly-locomoting legged robots. We detail the design features of Canid that promote our goals of agile operation in a relatively cheap, conventionally prototyped, commercial off-the-shelf actuated platform. We introduce new measurement methodology aimed at capturing our robot’s “body energy” during real time operation as a means of quantifying its potential for agile behavior. Finally, we present joint motor, inertial and motion capture data taken from Canid’s initial leaps into highly energetic regimes exhibiting large accelerations that illustrate the use of this measure and suggest its future potential as a platform for developing efficient, stable, hence useful bounding gaits. For more information: Kod*La

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTELLIGENT HEXAPOD

Robots are used to replace humans in some hazardous duty service like bomb disposal and capture information on places that cannot be reached. However, most of the robots used are wheeled robots. Walking machines have the potential to transverse rough terrain that is impossible for standard wheeled vehicles. The mobility of animals, including many insects is typically superior to current legged robots. However, the reality of current technology often encourages engineers to use different designs for the purposes of reducing the number of actuators or simplifying control problem. Thus, the main aim of this project is to design and implement a hexapod walking robot using servo drive mechanism and light weight material for easier control. The project includes constructing the hardware of the machine which is building the structure using appropriate material. The structure is built in the workshop by hand. All sawing and drilling is done using the equipment available in the workshop in Building 22, UTP. To have a stable and rigid structure, the machine is designed to be at its minimum size. This hexapod is designed to move using tripod gait controlled by 3 servo motors. The whole structure is controlled by microcontroller PIC16F877 programmed using C language. The hexapod is able to be controlled manually to move forward, reverse, turning left and right. The walking can be adjusted in 3 different speeds. This hexapod has the object avoidance intelligence using limit switches. The hexapod is able to reverse and find a new walking path if it encounters objects in front of it. With the wireless camera attached in front of the structure, it is able to be used for remote monitoring and rescue operations. The final design is cost effective, light, robust, has easy control and intelligently applicable

Integration of aerial and terrestrial locomotion modes in a bioinspired robotic system

In robotics, locomotion is a fundamental task for the development of high-level activities such as navigation. For a robotic system, the challenge of evading environmental obstacles depends both on its physical capabilities and on the strategies followed to achieve it. Thus, a robot with the ability to develop several modes of locomotion (walking, flying or swimming) has a greater probability of success in achieving its goal than a robot that develops only one. In nature, Hymenoptera insects use terrestrial and aerial modes of locomotion to carry out their activities. Mimicry the physical capabilities of these insects opens the possibility of improvements in the area of robotic locomotion. Therefore, this work seeks to generate a bio-inspired robotic system that integrates the terrestrial and aerial modes of locomotion. The methodology used in this research project has considered the anatomical study and characterization of Hymenoptera insects locomotion, the proposal of conceptual models that integrate terrestrial and aerial modes locomotion, the construction of a physical platform and experimental testing of the system. In addition, a gait generation approach based on an artificial nervous system of coupled nonlinear oscillators has been proposed. This approach has resulted in the generation of a coherent and functional gait pattern that, in combination with the flight capabilities of the system, has constituted an aero-terrestrial robot. The results obtained in this work include the construction of a bioinspired physical platform, the generation of the gait process using an artificial nervous system and the experimental tests on the integration of aero-terrestrial locomotion.Conacyt - Becario Naciona

Work minimization accounts for footfall phasing in slow quadrupedal gaits

Quadrupeds, like most bipeds, tend to walk with an even left/right footfall timing. However, the phasing between hind and forelimbs shows considerable variation. Here, we account for this variation by modeling and explaining the influence of hind-fore limb phasing on mechanical work requirements. These mechanics account for the different strategies used by: (1) slow animals (a group including crocodile, tortoise, hippopotamus and some babies); (2) normal medium to large mammals; and (3) (with an appropriate minus sign) sloths undertaking suspended locomotion across a range of speeds. While the unusual hind-fore phasing of primates does not match global work minimizing predictions, it does approach an only slightly more costly local minimum. Phases predicted to be particularly costly have not been reported in nature

Mechanism and Behaviour Co-optimisation of High Performance Mobile Robots

Mobile robots do not display the level of physical performance one would expect, given the specifications of their hardware. This research is based on the idea that their poor performance is at least partly due to their design, and proposes an optimisation approach for the design of high-performance mobile robots. The aim is to facilitate the design process, and produce versatile and robust robots that can exploit the maximum potential of today's technology. This can be achieved by a systematic optimisation study that is based on careful modelling of the robot's dynamics and its limitations, and takes into consideration the performance requirements that the robot is designed to meet. The approach is divided into two parts: (1) an optimisation framework, and (2) an optimisation methodology. In the framework, designs that can perform a large set of tasks are sought, by simultaneously optimising the design and the behaviours to perform them. The optimisation methodology consists of several stages, where various techniques are used for determining the design's most important parameters, and for maximising the chances of finding the best possible design based on the designer's evaluation criteria. The effectiveness of the optimisation approach is proved via a specific case-study of a high-performance balancing and hopping monopedal robot. The outcome is a robot design and a set of optimal behaviours that can meet several performance requirements of conflicting nature, by pushing the hardware to its limits in a safe way. The findings of this research demonstrate the importance of using realistic models, and taking into consideration the tasks that the robot is meant to perform in the design process

Design of CLARI: A miniature modular origami passive shape-morphing robot

Miniature robots provide unprecedented access to confined environments and show promising potential for novel applications such as search-and-rescue and high-value asset inspection. The capability of body deformation further enhances the reachability of these small robots in complex cluttered terrains similar to those of insects and soft arthropods. Motivated by this concept, we present CLARI, an insect-scale 2.59g quadrupedal robot capable of body deformation with tethered electrical connections for power and control and manufactured using laminate fabrication and assembled using origami pop-up techniques. In order to enable locomotion in multiple shape configurations, we designed a novel body architecture comprising of modular, actuated leg mechanisms. Overall, CLARI has eight independently actuated degrees of freedom (two per modular leg unit) driven by custom piezoelectric actuators, making it mechanically dextrous. We characterize open-loop robot locomotion at multiple stride frequencies (1-10Hz) using multiple gaits (trot, walk, etc.) in three different fixed body shapes (long, symmetric, wide) and illustrate the robot's capabilities. Finally, we demonstrate preliminary results of CLARI locomoting with a compliant body in open terrain and through a laterally constrained gap, a novel capability for legged robots. Our results represent the first step towards achieving effective cluttered terrain navigation with adaptable compliant robots in real-world environments

Ökomorphologie : Integration von Form, Funktion und Ökologie bei der Analyse morphologischer Strukturen

Organisms are complex entities whose study has necessitated an increasingly reductionistic stance in modern biology (CAPLAN 1987). As a consequence, biology as a science has been split up into numerous sub-disciplines. However, this extremely reductionistic philosophy must not be taken as marking the endpoint of biological research but should be reappraised as the beginning of a new integrative approach encompassing the entire organism (SAUER 1992). This view has been promoted since the second half of the 20th century with the rise of new disciplines such as ecophysiology and ethoecology. Moreover, in morphology, an integrative approach with regard to the form and function of organisms in their relationship to the external environment is becoming increasingly important (e.g. KARR & JAMES 1975, MOTTA & KOTRSCHAL 1992, REILLY & WAINWRIGHT 1994).Aufgrund der enormen Komplexität von Organismen ist es in der heutigen Biologie unumgänglich geworden, mehr und mehr reduktionistische Ansätze zu verfolgen. Dies kommt in ihrer zunehmenden Zergliederung in Einzeldisziplinen zum Ausdruck. Extrem reduktionistische Ansätze dürfen jedoch nicht das Ende biologischer Forschung markieren, sondern sollten zugleich der Anfang für einen weiteren integrativen Ansatz sein, der das organismische Niveau berücksichtigt (vgl. SAUER, 1992). Auch in der Morphologie gewinnt eine integrative Sichtweise, welche die Form und Funktion morphologischer Strukturen in ihrer Beziehung zur externen Umwelt betrachtet, immer stärker an Bedeutung. Aufbauend auf klassischen morphologischen Disziplinen wie der deskriptiven und funktionellen Morphologie versteht man unter der ökologische Morphologie allgemein die Lehre von der Wechselbeziehung zwischen der Morphologie eines Organismus und seiner natürlichen Umwelt. Während die Funktionsmorphologie die Analyse exakter Struktur-Funktionsbeziehungen zum Inhalt hat, geht es in der Ökomorphologie um die Untersuchung der Funktion von Organismen im ökologischen (Umwelt) und/oder evolutionären Kontext (Historie), wodurch eine Förderung des Verständnisses der ökologischen und evolutionären Konsequenzen ihres Bauplanes erreicht werden soll. Dieses Forschungskonzept wird im Rahmen dieser Abhandlung anhand von Fallbeispielen vor allem aus der Gruppe der Staphylinoidea erläutert

The micro-air-vehicle Golden Snitch and its figure-of-8 flapping

[[abstract]]Relaxing from the conventional regarding of the rigid flapping mechanism, in this review paper the author introduced flexible wing frames for micro-air-vehicles (MAVs) with the wing span of 20 cm at Tamkang University. The constructed flappingMAVGolden Snitch with a smallest body mass of 5.9 g created a successful 107 s flight record with a four-bar linkage driving mechanism in 2008. Augmented by the precision injection molding (PIM) manufacture, the almost polymer-made MAV with the modified driving mechanism increases the flight endurance up to 480 s in 2010. Via high speed photography, the author has ever found the wing-tip trajectory as an oblique figure-of-8 which composes the original up-and-down flapping and the induced coherent streamwise vibration while the wingbeat frequency being about 10-25 Hz. The time-averaged lift, thrust coefficients and the structure aging of MAVs have been investigated to mention the corresponding influence. This figure-of-8 was done by the aero-elastic interactive nature as well as the symmetry-breaking of a simple flapping system. The bifurcation (duality) phenomenon of the oblique figure-of-8 was shown. How the rigidity of the flexible wing frame influences the flapping appearance was also addressed qualitatively. The flexible MAVs exhibited the peculiar figure-of-8 away from the conventional domain of MAVs by the perspective of scaling laws. Some remaining technical issues or future works of the figure-of-8 flapping were summarized finally.[[notice]]補正完畢[[journaltype]]國內[[incitationindex]]EI[[ispeerreviewed]]Y[[booktype]]紙本[[countrycodes]]TW

Exploring muscular contribution during stepping of biomimetic feline hindlimbs

Although robotic locomotion have greatly advanced over the past years, the abyss that separates such locomotion from even the simplest animal locomotions prompt us to approach robotic locomotion taking cues from animals. The animal musculoskeletal structure, often ignored by roboticists due to its high redundancy and complexity, might hold the secret for self-stable locomotion observed in bipeds and quadrupeds. Aiming to better understand how muscles contribute to selfstable locomotion we take the feline structure as a model on a biomimetic approach. Using 6 air muscles per hindlimb to mimic real muscles, this robot walks stably on a treadmill while supported by a slider, simulating forelimbs. We individually evaluate muscle contribution to walking stability, performing a comparison between mono and biarticular synergistic muscles at the ankle and concluding that a higher compliance on the biarticular muscle improved walking stability. A better understanding of such complex phenomena may help on the development of better legged robots in the future, truly taking advantage of concepts developed by nature over the years.This work was partially supported by KAKENHI Kiban(S) 23220004.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6739573&tag=1