Design and development of the quadrupedal research platform JROB-2

Abstract

In order to meet the demand for a research platform of intelligent robotics, a quadrupedal research platform JROB-2 has been developed. This paper presents the design and development of the quadrupedal walking robot JROB-2. The JROB-2 consists of five parts: a quadrupedal walking mechanism, an embedded PC, servo amplifiers, power supplies, and a high speed stereo camera head. The stereo camera head can track the sinusoidal joint trajectory of the 15' amplitude and about 30 Hz frequency. The performance of the developed camera head is high enough to imitate the human eye movement such as saccade and pursuit. Almost all components of the JROB-2 are commercially available, and thus, its development cost is reduced and its maintenance becomes much easier. It is expected that the JROB-2 will serve as a good research platform for the studies of robotics and artificial intelligence.