Leg Design to Enable Dynamic Running and Climbing on BOBCAT

Austin, Max P.; Brown, Jason; Young, Charles A.; Clark, Jonathan E.

doi:10.1109/iros.2018.8594355

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…For example, birds and insects have claws and hairs on their feet to increase the chance of mechanical interlocks with rough surfaces, which have been studied by roboticists. [25,[29][30][31][32][33] The hardness of a target surface is another important factor in interlocking through penetration. Regardless of the surface's roughness, a sharp end-tip can penetrate the soft surface to make an engagement.…”

Section: Engagement Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avian‐Inspired Perching Mechanism for Jumping Robots

Kim

Woodward

Sitti

2023

Advanced Intelligent Systems

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The integration of multiple motion strategies in robots has been actively studied to expand the working environment through the addition of new locomotion modes, such as aquatic (swimming), terrestrial (walking and rolling), and aerial (flying and perching). The focus has been on the development of the mechanisms necessary to integrate multimodal locomotion capability. For example, four leg mechanisms connected with a membrane allow for the integration of gliding and walking; [1] a transformable wing mechanism integrates flying and walking [2] ; single-actuated leg mechanisms integrate amphibious walking motions on the water surface and solid terrain; [3] a bio-inspired, [4,5] wheel-like propeller, [6] and leg-flipper [7] mechanisms integrate swimming and walking. These adaptations allow the robot to interact with the environment in new ways, creating the new locomotion modes.Furthermore, from varying the working environment, roboticists have also studied strategic interactions between integrated locomotion modes. Each mode can cooperate to complement each other, maximizing performance of the integrated modes. In the case of integrated jumping and gliding modes, jumping mode provides the potential energy for gliding. The integrated gliding transforms the potential energy into propulsion using aerodynamics and generates longer jumping distances than a single jump. [8][9][10][11][12] Integrated walking and flying modes can also be very complimentary as orientation control is one of the challenging points for the bipedal walking robots. The actuators for flight control can assist in orientation control for the walking mode. [13] In addition, during near surface flight, intermittent surface contact can be used to stabilize the robot under external disturbances, such as air flows.The integration of perching into jumping robots can both expand the working environment and provide a complimentary behavior to enhance the jumping locomotion itself, allowing for greater jump height, longer jump distance, or more variability in jumping direction in general. Furthermore, jumping-gliding robots can maximize the gliding distance by integrating a perching motion to allow for gliding from the greater height and velocity achievable by jumping from a perch. In addition to locomotion-specific performance gains, perching provides task-specific benefits, such as exploring a wider area from an elevated position without power usage, [14,15] and charging batteries on the perched surface. [16] However, both perching and jumping from the perch have yet to be explored.This work develops an avian-inspired perching mechanism to integrate perching with a jumping robot, as seen in Figure 1A. The perching mechanism is designed to absorb the perching impact and establish an engagement with the surface while minimizing weight, as this is a key parameter in determining the jumping performance. Various works have developed shock-absorbing mechanisms: hydraulic compression [17] and viscoelastic material [18][19][20] and engagement types: grasping, [2...

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Section: Engagement Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avian‐Inspired Perching Mechanism for Jumping Robots

Kim

Woodward

Sitti

2023

Advanced Intelligent Systems

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“…According to Tables 1 [24,[53][54][55][80][81][82][83]85,86,[90][91][92]193] and 2 [18,19,25,132,139,141,143,144,[146][147][148][149]194,195], the majority of climbing robots in use is lightweight and small because the active area of their attachment devices cannot keep up with the weight growth as the robot grows [105]. Moreover, large attachment devices are more prone to undergo stress concentrations, which can lead to attachment failure [196].…”

Section: Bioinspired Adhesion Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning from biological attachment devices: applications of bioinspired reversible adhesive methods in robotics

Ding

2022

Front. Mech. Eng.

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Many organisms have attachment organs with excellent functions, such as adhesion, clinging, and grasping, as a result of biological evolution to adapt to complex living environments. From nanoscale to macroscale, each type of adhesive organ has its own underlying mechanisms. Many biological adhesive mechanisms have been studied and can be incorporated into robot designs. This paper presents a systematic review of reversible biological adhesive methods and the bioinspired attachment devices that can be used in robotics. The study discussed how biological adhesive methods, such as dry adhesion, wet adhesion, mechanical adhesion, and sub-ambient pressure adhesion, progress in research. The morphology of typical adhesive organs, as well as the corresponding attachment models, is highlighted. The current state of bioinspired attachment device design and fabrication is discussed. Then, the design principles of attachment devices are summarized in this article. The following section provides a systematic overview of climbing robots with bioinspired attachment devices. Finally, the current challenges and opportunities in bioinspired attachment research in robotics are discussed.

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“…These mechanisms have minimal inertia since the heavy actuator components are in the body. Bobcat [17] optimized the Minitaur link design specifically for climbing, and it has demonstrated dynamic climbing on a wire mesh. On the other hand, linkage-mechanisms increase complexity, and a singularity exists inside the practical workspace.…”

Section: Leg Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

SCALER: A Tough Versatile Quadruped Free-Climber Robot

Tanaka¹,

Shirai²,

Li³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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This paper introduces SCALER, a quadrupedal robot that demonstrates climbing on bouldering walls, overhangs, ceilings and trotting on the ground. SCALER is one of the first high-degrees of freedom four-limbed robots that can free-climb under the Earth's gravity and one of the most mechanically efficient quadrupeds on the ground. Where other state-of-the-art climbers specialize in climbing, SCALER promises practical free-climbing with payload and ground locomotion, which realizes true versatile mobility. A new climbing gait, SKATE gait, increases the payload by utilizing the SCALER body linkage mechanism. SCALER achieves a maximum normalized locomotion speed of 1.87 /s, or 0.56 m/s on the ground and 1.0 /min, or 0.35 m/min in bouldering wall climbing. Payload capacity reaches 233 % of the SCALER weight on the ground and 35 % on the vertical wall. Our GOAT gripper, a mechanically adaptable underactuated two-finger gripper, successfully grasps convex and non-convex objects and supports SCALER.

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Leg Design to Enable Dynamic Running and Climbing on BOBCAT

Cited by 14 publications

References 21 publications

Avian‐Inspired Perching Mechanism for Jumping Robots

Avian‐Inspired Perching Mechanism for Jumping Robots

Learning from biological attachment devices: applications of bioinspired reversible adhesive methods in robotics

SCALER: A Tough Versatile Quadruped Free-Climber Robot

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