Body design requirements

for a new RiSE body. The thought was that this could be a "checklist" of sorts for any new designs--you can quickly skim through the requirements to see if a design is viable or not. Also, having the requirements specified may spur ideas on how to make clever novel designs. Please update/edit the list according to your ideas about what the robot should be like.

Absolutely vital:

• Be able to climb well
• Be able to run/walk moderately well
• Be able to turn on a wall with some radius of curvature R
• Be able to transition from ground to a vertical wall, from a vertical wall to a rooftop
• Be able to control forces in the vertical (fore-aft) and wing (pinching) directions
• Be able to adjust wing (pinching) angle for all legs (not necessarily independently) (actually, is this strictly necessary? If you had both front or rear feet pretty close to the centerline of the robot (like the front legs on SpinyBot), then they may not need a wing DOF..)
• Be able to step with each foot in turn independently (actually, not necessarily: the front legs should be able to step independently, and probably the middle legs of a hexapod as well, but the hind legs and maybe middle legs could be coupled)
• Have a powered tail
• Be able to accomodate feet that are 7cm long -- feet this size will not interfere with each other during useful gaits

Strongly preferred:

• Be able to load spines either vertically down the wall or pulling slightly in/outward throughout the stroke (i.e. load the spines in the direction they will eventually be loaded throughout the gait), and maintain forces nearly parallel to the wall on the feet.
• Have a strong ‘stroke’ actuator in the direction of the body and a weak (smaller, lighter) wing-angle actuator (or maybe under-actuated wing direction?)
• Be able to control forces in the right-left directions in the plane of the wall (for at least the middle legs for a hexapod--this will allow you to have internal body forces in that direction)
• Be able to move sideways across a wall—i.e. with the head-tail axis of the robot horizontal on the wall
• Use 10 actuators

Would be nice:

• Use 8-9 actuators
• Modular design so it would be easy to revise the leg design or make a new body or something like that, instead of re-building the entire robot.
• Robot cost is cheap, so future designs can be easily remade if desired, or we can make a new one if it breaks -- for example, make a cheap plastic design instead of one requiring lots of machining

-- AlanAsbeck - 22 Oct 2005