1,344 research outputs found
Design and construction of a hexapod walking robot
Includes bibliographical references.The design and construction of a hexapod walking robot for the purpose of continuing research in robot architecture and behavior will be discussed. A short description of common robot designs is given, followed by a discussion of the basic design that was selected. Linear actuator design, frame design, and leg design is detailed. A description of the analog servo control system and the functional requirements of the microcontroller system is included. The lithium batteries chosen for the power supply are discussed. A schedule for project completion is given, as well as component costs. Performance of the robot was limited by RF interference which caused problems in the digital circuitry as well as the analog circuitry used. A brief discussion of possible solutions to this problem is given. A related project, Microprocessor Design For A Walking Robot, by Christopher Johnson, Northern lliinois University Department Of Electrical Engineering, May 1996, contains a detailed description of the microcontroller system and programming for this robot.B.S. (Bachelor of Science
DEPUSH HexCrawler Improvement Project
DEPUSH Technologies purchased the rights to an older six-legged walking robot design and sought help from WPI and HUST students to improve its functionality to better meet the needs of the secondary education market in mainland China. To accomplish this goal, both the mechanical walking system and control system were improved. The mechanical structure was redesigned for three degree of freedom legs and a more robust chassis, while an entirely new control system was utilized to implement full inverse body and walking kinematics. The result was a cutting-edge hexapod, the HexCrawler 2.0, a versatile platform with potential applications in a variety of robotics-related projects and solid foundation for future research on high-level control
Multiple chaotic central pattern generators with learning for legged locomotion and malfunction compensation
An originally chaotic system can be controlled into various periodic
dynamics. When it is implemented into a legged robot's locomotion control as a
central pattern generator (CPG), sophisticated gait patterns arise so that the
robot can perform various walking behaviors. However, such a single chaotic CPG
controller has difficulties dealing with leg malfunction. Specifically, in the
scenarios presented here, its movement permanently deviates from the desired
trajectory. To address this problem, we extend the single chaotic CPG to
multiple CPGs with learning. The learning mechanism is based on a simulated
annealing algorithm. In a normal situation, the CPGs synchronize and their
dynamics are identical. With leg malfunction or disability, the CPGs lose
synchronization leading to independent dynamics. In this case, the learning
mechanism is applied to automatically adjust the remaining legs' oscillation
frequencies so that the robot adapts its locomotion to deal with the
malfunction. As a consequence, the trajectory produced by the multiple chaotic
CPGs resembles the original trajectory far better than the one produced by only
a single CPG. The performance of the system is evaluated first in a physical
simulation of a quadruped as well as a hexapod robot and finally in a real
six-legged walking machine called AMOSII. The experimental results presented
here reveal that using multiple CPGs with learning is an effective approach for
adaptive locomotion generation where, for instance, different body parts have
to perform independent movements for malfunction compensation.Comment: 48 pages, 16 figures, Information Sciences 201
A SpiNNaker Application: Design, Implementation and Validation of SCPGs
In this paper, we present the numerical results of the implementation
of a Spiking Central Pattern Generator (SCPG) on a SpiNNaker
board. The SCPG is a network of current-based leaky integrateand-
fire (LIF) neurons, which generates periodic spike trains that correspond
to different locomotion gaits (i.e. walk, trot, run). To generate
such patterns, the SCPG has been configured with different topologies,
and its parameters have been experimentally estimated. To validate our
designs, we have implemented them on the SpiNNaker board using PyNN
and we have embedded it on a hexapod robot. The system includes a
Dynamic Vision Sensor system able to command a pattern to the robot
depending on the frequency of the events fired. The more activity the
DVS produces, the faster that the pattern that is commanded will be.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2016-77785-
One-Chip Solution to Intelligent Robot Control: Implementing Hexapod Subsumption Architecture Using a Contemporary Microprocessor
This paper introduces a six-legged autonomous robot managed by a single
controller and a software core modeled on subsumption architecture. We begin by
discussing the features and capabilities of IsoPod, a new processor for
robotics which has enabled a streamlined implementation of our project. We
argue that this processor offers a unique set of hardware and software
features, making it a practical development platform for robotics in general
and for subsumption-based control architectures in particular. Next, we
summarize original ideas on subsumption architecture implementation for a
six-legged robot, as presented by its inventor Rodney Brooks in 1980s. A
comparison is then made to a more recent example of a hexapod control
architecture based on subsumption. The merits of both systems are analyzed and
a new subsumption architecture layout is formulated as a response. We conclude
with some remarks regarding the development of this project as a hint at new
potentials for intelligent robot design, opened by a recent development in
embedded controller market
Analysis and Simulation of the Leg of an Hexapod Robot for Remote Exploration
The locomotion system is determined by the terrain conditions. The aim of this paper is to introduce the characteristics and simulation of a hexapod legged robot that can be easily used for exploration of abrupt and harsh terrains, Jike the Rio Tinto environment. A walking robot seems like the best option for this kind of terrain. Some of the advantages are that they do not need continuous terrain, they have less problems with sliding and they also have greater capacity to overcome obstacles as they produce Jess harm to the environment that the scientist wants to explore on the contrary when faced with mechanical design they present a design challenge, also in the static and dynamic analysis problem of a legged robot, there is a high complexity that has to be taken into account. This paper shows how to easily cope with the analysis of hexapod robot movement based on a design developed by the Center of Astrobiology INTA-CSIC for operation in RioTinto (Huelva - Spain)
Fast Damage Recovery in Robotics with the T-Resilience Algorithm
Damage recovery is critical for autonomous robots that need to operate for a
long time without assistance. Most current methods are complex and costly
because they require anticipating each potential damage in order to have a
contingency plan ready. As an alternative, we introduce the T-resilience
algorithm, a new algorithm that allows robots to quickly and autonomously
discover compensatory behaviors in unanticipated situations. This algorithm
equips the robot with a self-model and discovers new behaviors by learning to
avoid those that perform differently in the self-model and in reality. Our
algorithm thus does not identify the damaged parts but it implicitly searches
for efficient behaviors that do not use them. We evaluate the T-Resilience
algorithm on a hexapod robot that needs to adapt to leg removal, broken legs
and motor failures; we compare it to stochastic local search, policy gradient
and the self-modeling algorithm proposed by Bongard et al. The behavior of the
robot is assessed on-board thanks to a RGB-D sensor and a SLAM algorithm. Using
only 25 tests on the robot and an overall running time of 20 minutes,
T-Resilience consistently leads to substantially better results than the other
approaches
- …