Amphibious Study on a Basilisk Lizard Inspired Robot

Abstract

This study describes the amphibious study of a novel robot, which attempts to emulate the basilisk lizard’s ability to run on the surface of water and walk on land. Functionally, the robot uses four bar mechanism as its driving leg with a self-adaptive foot added to its end. Through some hydromechanics calculations and analyses, its water running ability is theoretically verified. And via terrestrial gait planning, the feasibility of land walking is also realized and the performance has been tested by both simulation and experiment. This study opens the door for legged robots to become ambulatory over both land and water in China and its research method has given a good reference for further study of the amphibious robot.