Some Design Ideas for a new climbing platform

Body Design

These slides cover concepts that could be important for a flexible body and discuss methods of body, tail and leg articulation. - From SangbaeKim?

• Robot Body Designs
• MVI_6526.AVI: short videoclip of body articulation

Two ideas for front and rear body sections of a hexapod. Main points are:

• versatile front legs with searching and gripping capability.
• powerful rear legs coupled together for primary thrusting.
• Slides and pics:
  • DOS-ScanningFrontLegs.ppt
  • SJT-ThrustingRearLegs.ppt

Two ideas for other hexapod (or more legs) robot designs. Main points are:

• Underactuated rear leg design
• Left-right pinch DOF idea
• Highly underactuated body design.
• Slides:
  • AASD_Prototype.ppt

Finally, a link to the "Body Design Requirements" TWiki page--these "Requirements" are our best guess at requirements for the robot, but are open to editing. We thought if we enumerated actual requirements for the body, it would facilitate designs, discussion, and creativity: BodyDesignRequirements?

Foot Actuation

• AJP-ActuationAttheFoot.ppt

These slides show two possible ideas for generating actuation on the new platform at the foot. Having actuation would increase our ability to climb with spiny feet substantially. Engagement and disengagement problems would become trivial, and the number of toes necessary to climb a given surface would decrease becasue a much higher percentage of toes catch when some normal force (into the wall) is applied. Keeping the number of toes per foot we have now would allow us to climb smoother surfaces because multiple toes would catch and support the robot instead of only one or two as happens now on semi-rough walls. Two ideas are presented: One for an independently controlled cable that would require a small lightweight actuator for each foot and Two, and alternative approach that couples the DOF to the crank motion of the foot, creating normal force at the foot without the use of additional actuators. -- From AaronParness

Other General Body Ideas

• 1-DOF Posture Change Actuator for Running vs. Climbing (body hinge in midline of torso?)

Platform Concept Pics

• Hexapod Concept: