Development of Hexapod Robot with one passive joint on foot
As developed a Hexapod Robot with one passive joint on foot the structure and the movement characteristic are introduced in this paper. According to the insect's body characteristic and the movement characteristic, we design the robot's mechanical structure, the software and hardware. The design of the aluminum frame of the robot not only reduces the weight of the robot but also ensures that the robot has a higher strength. In the hardware aspect, we choose Freescale Carle chip as the central control chip, and it is equipped with multi sensors, which makes the robot have a certain degree of autonomy. In software aspect, we programmed in the IAR, and developed the host computer software to debug and download the action group to the robot, which is convenient and efficient. On the other hand, the foot adopts a universal foot structure which can reduce the impact of foot and ground. Meanwhile, it increases the contact area of the foot and the ground. There is a rubber gasket in the robot's palm, which adds to the adhesion between the robot and the ground. This foot-end design ensures that robots can adapt to different ground structures with the same attitude, which greatly improves the stability of the robot during operation. And we analyze the kinematics of the leg mechanism and derive the kinematics formula of the foot. According to the formula, we make a MATLAB simulation of the stable space of the passive joint at the foot, and obtain the stable range of motion. At last, we carried on the prototype experiment; the experiment proves that when the robot stands in different postures, the foot can be fully contacted with the ground. And the experiment of straight walking, turning, attitude adjustment, obstacle avoidance, tracking and other functions show that the Hexapod Robot designed in this paper is provided with high stability, superior flexibility, and particularly good adaptability to different terrains.