Modern Walking Robots: A Brief Overview

In this review, we would like to present some of the most interesting modern designs of walking robots: bipedal, quadropedal, hexopedal, and octopods. Their advantages and disadvantages are highlighted. It has been determined that structures with eight or more limbs are ineffective due to high level of electricity consumption. The use of more than six number of legs does not give noticeable advantages in profile cross-country ability or maneuverability, however, it allows to reduce the forces and moments of inertia forces due to decrease in mode coefficient (ratio of time spent by propulsor in support to time of entire step), and, consequently, smoother leg movements in swing phase

Climbing and Walking Robots

Nowadays robotics is one of the most dynamic fields of scientific researches. The shift of robotics researches from manufacturing to services applications is clear. During the last decades interest in studying climbing and walking robots has been increased. This increasing interest has been in many areas that most important ones of them are: mechanics, electronics, medical engineering, cybernetics, controls, and computers. Today’s climbing and walking robots are a combination of manipulative, perceptive, communicative, and cognitive abilities and they are capable of performing many tasks in industrial and non- industrial environments. Surveillance, planetary exploration, emergence rescue operations, reconnaissance, petrochemical applications, construction, entertainment, personal services, intervention in severe environments, transportation, medical and etc are some applications from a very diverse application fields of climbing and walking robots. By great progress in this area of robotics it is anticipated that next generation climbing and walking robots will enhance lives and will change the way the human works, thinks and makes decisions. This book presents the state of the art achievments, recent developments, applications and future challenges of climbing and walking robots. These are presented in 24 chapters by authors throughtot the world The book serves as a reference especially for the researchers who are interested in mobile robots. It also is useful for industrial engineers and graduate students in advanced study

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

Разработка мобильного робота повышенной проходимости

В ходе выполнения данной работы были рассмотрены виды конструкций шагающих роботов, формы корпусов и типы движителей. После обзора, в данной работе, было решено использовать гексапедальную конструкцию с продолговатой формой корпуса и дуговыми движителями. Спроектированы структурная и функциональная схемы, дерево вызова процедур мобильного робота повышенной проходимости, помимо этого, был разработан алгоритм движения робота. Произведён расчёт и выбор элементов системы. В месте с этим, был разработан и изготовлен физический макет проектируемого робота. Проведены испытания макета и сделаны заключения, о том, что при использовании шаговых приводов, необходимо применение датчика положения, в связи с пропуском шагов привода, либо применение редуктора, который бы предотвратил пропуск шагов.In the course of this work, the types of walking robot structures, the shapes of the body, and the types of propulsors were considered. After the literature review, it was decided to use a hexapedal construction with an elongated body shape and arc propulsors for this work. In addition, an algorithm for robot movement was developed. Calculation and selection of the system elements were carried out. In this part, a physical prototype of the designed robot was developed and manufactured. Tests of the prototype were made and conclusions were drawn that when using step drives it is necessary to apply the position of the sensor or use the gearboxes that will maintain the throughput

Adaptive Locomotion: The Cylindabot Robot

Adaptive locomotion is an emerging field of robotics due to the complex interaction between the robot and its environment. Hybrid locomotion is where a robot has more than one mode of locomotion and potentially delivers the benefits of both, however, these advantages are often not quantified or applied to new scenarios. The classic approach is to design robots with a high number of degrees of freedom and a complex control system, whereas an intelligent morphology can simplify the problem and maintain capabilities. Cylindabot is designed to be a minimally actuated hybrid robot with strong terrain crossing capabilities. By limiting the number of motors, this reduces the robot's weight and means less reinforcement is needed for the physical frame or drive system. Cylindabot uses different drive directions to transform between using wheels or legs. Cylindabot is able to climb a slope of 32 degrees and a step ratio of 1.43 while only being driven by two motors. A physical prototype and simulation models show that adaptation is optimal for a range of terrain (slopes, steps, ridges and gaps). Cylindabot successfully adapts to a map environment where there are several routes to the target location. These results show that a hybrid robot can increase its terrain capabilities when changing how it moves and that this adaptation can be applied to wider environments. This is an important step to have hybrid robots being deployed to real situations

Characterisation of a nuclear cave environment utilising an autonomous swarm of heterogeneous robots

As nuclear facilities come to the end of their operational lifetime, safe decommissioning becomes a more prevalent issue. In many such facilities there exist ‘nuclear caves’. These caves constitute areas that may have been entered infrequently, or even not at all, since the construction of the facility. Due to this, the topography and nature of the contents of these nuclear caves may be unknown in a number of critical aspects, such as the location of dangerous substances or significant physical blockages to movement around the cave. In order to aid safe decommissioning, autonomous robotic systems capable of characterising nuclear cave environments are desired. The research put forward in this thesis seeks to answer the question: is it possible to utilise a heterogeneous swarm of autonomous robots for the remote characterisation of a nuclear cave environment? This is achieved through examination of the three key components comprising a heterogeneous swarm: sensing, locomotion and control. It will be shown that a heterogeneous swarm is not only capable of performing this task, it is preferable to a homogeneous swarm. This is due to the increased sensory and locomotive capabilities, coupled with more efficient explorational prowess when compared to a homogeneous swarm