Biomechanical study of the Spider Crab as inspiration for the development of a biomimetic robot

A problem faced by oil companies is the maintenance of the location register of pipelines that cross the surf zone, the regular survey of their location, and also their inspection. A survey of the state of art did not allow identifying operating systems capable of executing such tasks. Commercial technologies available on the market also do not address this problem and/or do not satisfy the presented requirements. A possible solution is to use robotic systems which have the ability to walk on the shore and in the surf zone, subject to existing currents and ripples, and being able to withstand these ambient conditions. In this sense, the authors propose the development of a spider crab biologically inspired robot to achieve those tasks. Based on these ideas, this work presents a biomechanical study of the spider crab, its modeling and simulation using the SimMechanics toolbox of Matlab/Simulink, which is the first phase of this more vast project. Results show a robot model that is moving in an “animal like” manner, the locomotion, the algorithm presented in this paper allows the crab to walk sideways, in the desired direction.N/

Locomation strategies for amphibious robots-a review

In the past two decades, unmanned amphibious robots have proven the most promising and efficient systems ranging from scientific, military, and commercial applications. The applications like monitoring, surveillance, reconnaissance, and military combat operations require platforms to maneuver on challenging, complex, rugged terrains and diverse environments. The recent technological advancements and development in aquatic robotics and mobile robotics have facilitated a more agile, robust, and efficient amphibious robots maneuvering in multiple environments and various terrain profiles. Amphibious robot locomotion inspired by nature, such as amphibians, offers augmented flexibility, improved adaptability, and higher mobility over terrestrial, aquatic, and aerial mediums. In this review, amphibious robots' locomotion mechanism designed and developed previously are consolidated, systematically The review also analyzes the literature on amphibious robot highlighting the limitations, open research areas, recent key development in this research field. Further development and contributions to amphibious robot locomotion, actuation, and control can be utilized to perform specific missions in sophisticated environments, where tasks are unsafe or hardly feasible for the divers or traditional aquatic and terrestrial robots

Modelação, Simulação e Implementação de Padrões de Locomoção para Robôs Hexápodes

A grande maioria de robôs móveis terrestres usam as rodas como mecanismo de locomoção. E evidente sua vantagem, quanto ao menor consumo de energia, frente aos sistemas multi-pernas. Porém os robôs com pernas conseguem inserir-se em ambientes aos quais os robôs com rodas são simplesmente incapazes de locomoverem-se, como ´e o caso de obstáculos de grandes dimensões, terreno solto ou encostas íngremes. Embora os robôs multi-pernas estejam ainda concentrados no campo da investigação, montá-los e executar uma determinada sequência de testes pode ser algo lento e dispendioso, pois o ambiente de simulação possui uma baixa relação custo/benefício, quando relacionado à construção do protótipo. Deste modo se o projeto de tais robôs for feito em um ambiente de simulação questões como qualidade e/ou limites de operação dos componentes do sistema podem ser desprezados sendo mantido apenas as características consideradas importantes para a análise. A simulação permite tanto viabilizar a pesquisa quanto reproduzir modelos que se aproximem dos valores ideais, embora nada possa ser comparado a experimentos reais, onde o robô de fato opera. O objetivo deste trabalho consiste em desenvolver a modelagem de robôs hexápodes e simulá-los em um ambiente virtual de sistemas mecânicos, que viabiliza a análise de desempenho de diversos critérios do modelo, bem como averiguar a trajetória virtual construída pelo robô.The great majority of terrestrial mobile robots uses the wheels as locomotion mechanism. It is obvious their advantage, as to lower energy consumption compared to multi-legs. However, the robots with legs can insert themselves in environments for which the robots with wheels are simply incapable of be inserted, as is the case of obstacles of large dimensions, terrain loose or steep slopes. Although the robots multi-legs are still concentrated in the field of research, assemble them and perform a particular sequence of tests can be something slow and costly, because the simulation environment has a low cost/benefit ratio, when related to the construction of the prototype. In this way if the project of such robots will be made in a simulation environment questions as quality and/or limits of operation of the components of the system can be rejected being kept only the characteristics considered important for the analysis. The simulation allows both facilitate research as play models that approximate the ideal values, although nothing can be compared to real experiments, where the fact of robot operates. The objective of this work is to develop the modeling of robots hexapods and simulate them in a virtual environment of mechanical systems, which makes possible performance analysis of several model criteria and determine the virtual path built by the robot