The Journal of Korea Robotics Society (로봇학회논문지)

Korea Robotics Society (한국로봇학회)
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Design and Analysis of Leg Linkage of Small-scale Insect-inspired Ground Mobile Robot

소형 곤충형 지상 이동 로봇 주행 메커니즘의 다리 기구 설계 및 분석

  • Received : 2023.05.30
  • Accepted : 2023.07.20
  • Published : 2023.08.31
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Abstract

Small-scale ground mobile robots can access confined spaces where people or larger robots are unable. As the scale of the robot decreases, the relative size of the environment increases; therefore, maintaining the mobility of the small-scale robot is required. However, small-scale robots have limitations in using a large number of high-performance actuators, powerful computational devices, and a power source. Insects can effectively navigate various terrains in nature with their legged motion. Discrete contact with the ground and the foot enables creatures to traverse irregular surfaces. Inspired by the leg motion of the insect, researchers have developed small-scale robots and they implemented swing and lifting motions of the leg by designing leg linkages that can be adapted to small-scale robots. In this paper, we propose a leg linkage design for insect-inspired small-scale ground mobile robots. To use minimal actuation and reduce the control complexity, we designed a 1-DOF 3-dimensional leg linkage that can generate a proper leg trajectory using one continuous rotational input. We analyzed the kinematics of the proposed leg linkage to investigate the effect of link parameters on the foot trajectory.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This research is performed based on the cooperation with the Defense Acquuisition Program Administration and Defense Rapid Acquisition Technology Research Institute's Critical Technology R&D program (No. UC190002D)

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