Locomotion and navigation of a Planar Walker based on binary actuation

Abstract

Locomotion and navigation of a surface walking/climbing robot - Planar Walker, based on a novel planar 8-bar mechanism are studied. The robot moves on a surface through decoupled transverse gaits and turning gaits with finite lengths and finite rotation angles. Motions of the gaits are modeled using planar rigid motion group. Three point-to-point navigation methods are developed for various situations: simple line of sight (SLS), simulated annealing accurate planning (SAAP), and localized hybrid accurate planning (LHAP) algorithms. Computer simulation shows that SAAP produces accurate gait sequences and LHAP saves computation time and resources for long-range targets. However, experiment shows that SLS outperforms SAAP and LHAP as the number of gaits becomes the major criteria in evaluating the gait performance due to imprecision of individual gait movements.