2A1-E26 Development of Leg-Articulated Body Hybrid Mobile Robot

Abstract

This paper proposes a new leg-articulated body hybrid mobile robot. The robot is composed of many segments linked in series, and each segment has three-degree-of-freedom articulated body, two passive wheels and two rotary legs. The robot moves its yaw joints and passive wheels for snake-like motion on plane surface, and moves its pitch and roll joints and active legs to adapt to rough terrain. The active legs attached to the both sizes of the segment are folded when the robot moves forward on plane surface not to prevent the motion. Prototype robot composed of three units was made to examine the effectiveness of the proposed system.