Legged robot
Legged robots are a type of mobile robot which use mechanical limbs for movement. They are more versatile than wheeled robots and can traverse many different terrains, though these advantages require increased complexity and power consumption. Legged robots often imitate legged animals, such as humans or insects, in an example of biomimicry.
Types
Legged robots can be categorized by the number of limbs they use, which determines gaits available. Many-legged robots tend to be more stable, while fewer legs lends itself to greater maneuverability.
One-legged
One-legged, or pogo stick robots use a hopping motion for navigation. In the 1980s, Carnegie Mellon University developed a one-legged robot to study balance.[1] Berkeley's SALTO is another example.[2][3][4][5]
Two-legged
Bipedal or two-legged robots exhibit bipedal motion. As such, they face two primary problems:
- stability control, which refers to a robot's balance, and
- motion control, which refers to a robot's ability to move.
Stability control is particularly difficult for bipedal systems, which must maintain balance in the forward-backward direction even at rest.[Note 1] Some robots, especially toys, solve this problem with large feet, which provide greater stability while reducing mobility. Alternatively, more advanced systems use sensors such as accelerometers or gyroscopes to provide dynamic feedback in a fashion that approximates a human being's balance.[Note 2] Such sensors are also employed for motion control and walking. The complexity of these tasks lends itself to machine learning.[Note 3]
Simple bipedal motion can be approximated by a rolling polygon where the length of each side matches that of a single step. As the step length grows shorter, the number of sides increases and the motion approaches that of a circle. This connects bipedal motion to wheeled motion as a limit of stride length.[Note 4]
Two-legged robots include:
Four-legged
Quadrupedal or four-legged robots exhibit quadrupedal motion. They benefit from increased stability over bipedal robots, especially during movement. At slow speeds, a quadrupedal robot may move only one leg at a time, ensuring a stable tripod. Four-legged robots also benefit from a lower center of gravity than two-legged systems.[Note 5]
Four legged robots include:
Six-legged
Six-legged robots, or hexapods, are motivated by a desire for even greater stability than bipedal or quadrupedal robots. Their final designs often mimic the mechanics of insects, and their gaits may be categorized similarly. These include:
- Wave gait: the slowest gait, in which pairs of legs move in a "wave" from the back to the front.
- Tripod gait: a slightly faster step, in which three legs move at once. The remaining three legs provide a stable tripod for the robot.[Note 7]
Six-legged robots include:
Eight-legged
Eight-legged legged robots are inspired by spiders and other arachnids, as well as some underwater walkers. They offer by far the greatest stability, which enabled some early successes with legged robots.[Note 9]
Eight-legged robots include:
- Dante, a Carnegie Mellon University project designed to explore Mount Erebus.[Note 9]
- The T8X, a commercially available robot designed to emulate a spider's appearance and movements.[9]
Hybrids
Some robots use a combination of legs and wheels. This grants a machine the speed and energy efficiency of wheeled locomotion as well as the mobility of legged navigation. Boston Dynamics' Handle, a bipedal robot with wheels on both legs, is one example.[10]
See also
Notes
References
- 1 2 Britton, Peter (September 1984). "Engineering the new breed of walking machines". Popular Science. 225 (3). pp. 67–69.
- ↑ Israel, Brett (2016-12-06). "Wall-jumping robot is most vertically agile ever built". Berkeley News. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Jason Falconer. "Two-part “stutter jumps" could reduce jumping robot power consumption". 2012.
- ↑ Byron Spice. "BowGo! CMU robotics researchers develop a pogo stick that aims high". 2001.
- ↑ Liv. "Explosive Pogo Stick Robot Leaps Over 25-Foot Obstacles" 2009
- ↑ Subbaraman, Nidhi. 2013. "'Hero' Humanoid Valkyrie Is NASA's Newest Biped Robot." NBC News. December 11.
- ↑ "BigDog - The Most Advanced Rough-Terrain Robot on Earth". Boston Dynamics. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Brooks, R. (1989). A robot that walks: Emergent behaviors from a carefully evolved network. Neural Computation 1(2): 253-262; reprinted in R. Brooks, Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press), chap. 2.
- ↑ Walsh, Michael (2017-02-11). "Giant Robot Spiders Will Soon Rule Us All". Nerdist. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Ackerman, Erico Guizzo and Evan (2017-02-27). "Boston Dynamics Officially Unveils Its Wheel-Leg Robot: "Best of Both Worlds"". IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- Bekey, George A. (2005). Autonomous robots: from biological inspiration to implementation and control. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-02578-2.
- Wang, Lingfeng.; Tan, K. C.; Chew, Chee Meng. (2006). Evolutionary robotics: from algorithms to implementations. Hackensack, N.J.: World Scientific Pub. ISBN 978-981-256-870-0.