Design and development of the hybrid mobile robots

Abstract

In this paper, the authors present two robots with leg-wheel hybrid locomotion systems, developed for didactic and research purposes. The first robot consists of a main platform which has four spatial mechanisms connected to it that act as legs, and each leg has a drive wheel on its extremity. The robot uses servomotors for powering the legs and each wheel is powered by a servomotor and a DC motor. The second robot consists of a main platform which has three legs attached to it, and each leg has a drive wheel on its extremity. The legs are powered by DC motors trough timing belts transmissions. Keeping the legs in a certain position is done by using couplings. The wheels are powered by a single DC motor. The second prototype was built in two configurations: one with typical wheels and one with mixed wheels, that has two typical wheels and an omnidirectional wheel.