19-05-2012, 11:18 AM
DYNAMIC MODELING AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION ANALYSIS OF CRAB WALKING OF A SIX-LEGGED ROBOT
ABSTRACT
The superior terrain adaptability and maneuverability characteristics of multi-legged robots compared to wheeled or tracked vehicles for off-road locomotion motivated the development of six-legged walking robots.
Six-legged robot might be used for locating and disarming bombs, extinguishing fires, underground mining to recover natural resources, explorations of ocean floors and planets, and others, where a human cannot sustain or which would be dangerous for him/her. However, with today’s technologies, the legged systems have the disadvantages of pay load to weight ratio, and poor energy efficiency.
An autonomous walking robot cannot function satisfactorily with a poor energy efficiency, due to the fact that it has to carry all driving and control units in addition to payload and trunk body. Long duration missions are also subjected to power supply constraints.
The minimization of energy consumption plays a key role in the design of an autonomous multi-legged robot. Various approaches are available in the literature to obtain energy-efficient gaits of multi-legged robots