Design and swing strategy of a bio-inspired robot capable of transverse ricochetal brachiation

Abstract

This paper presents a bio-inspired robot designed to enable transverse ricochetal brachiation. The body of the robot swings under persistent resonant-excitation at a velocity sufficient to allow a leap across large gaps. The design of the robot was inspired by the “cliffhanger challenge” in the popular Japanese entertainment TV show Sasuke. The locomotion of the robot is delivered via parallelogram linkages in the arms as well as a swinging tail. A dynamic mathematical model was used in the formulation of a swing strategy that takes into account the resonant frequency of the system (i.e., the sinusoidal motion of the tail) in conjunction with the horizontal movement of the robot body imposed by actuators attached to the arms. Strong agreement between the simulation results and those obtained in experiments confirms the efficacy of the dynamic model proposed in this study as well as the feasibility of this first-generation robot.