Steep slope locomotion and manipulation mechanism with minimum degrees of freedom

Abstract

A walking robot that has high ground adaptability and the ability to perform various tasks would be extremely desirable in many fields. It can move efficiently in an outdoor environment and on uneven terrain such as stairs, as well as perform tasks. In this paper, for a six-legged uneven terrain walking robot with two body segments, we examine the number of degrees of freedom, movement performance, stability on uneven terrain, and work performance. In addition, we examine the arrangement of the degrees of freedom suitable for practical uneven terrain work by this type of robot. We also propose that a walking robot with an extra leg extension mechanism and a 6-DOF between the body segments is effective. We adopt this design to ParaWalker-II, which we had previously developed, and verify the effectiveness.