Computer Engineering Commons^™

Bio-Inspired Design And Dynamic Maneuverability Of A Minimally Actuated Six-Legged Robot, Aaron Hoover, Samuel Burden, Xiao-Yu Fu, S. Sastry, Ronald Fearing

Aaron M. Hoover

Rapidly running arthropods like cockroaches make use of passive dynamics to achieve remarkable locomotion performance with regard to stability, speed, and maneuverability. In this work, we take inspiration from these organisms to design, fabricate, and control a 10cm, 24 gram underactuated hexapedal robot capable of running at 14 body lengths per second and performing dynamic turning maneuvers. Our design relies on parallel kinematic mechanisms fabricated using the scaled smart composite microstructures (SCM) process and viscoelastic polymer legs with tunable stiffness. In addition to the novel robot design, we present experimental validation of the lateral leg spring (LLS) locomotion model's prediction …