Journal of Bionic Engineering

November 2018, Volume 15, Issue 6, pp 971–981

Chunsong Zhang， Jiansheng Dai

1. International Centre for Advanced Mechanisms and Robotics, School of Mechanical EngineeringTianjin UniversityTianjinChina

2.Centre for Robotics ResearchKing’s College LondonStrand, LondonUK

Abstract

This paper proposes a metamorphic quadruped robot with a moveable trunk, called Origaker I. From the angle view of bionics, the robot can imitate the natural quadrupeds to twist its trunk. As we all know, most natural quadrupeds twist their trunk when running. The twisting trunk must bring significant benefits to their locomotion. Nevertheless there are few researches focusing on running gaits with twisting trunk of quadruped robots. Therefore, this paper investigates the trot gait with twisting trunk. One gait cycle of a lizard with twisting trunk is observed. Apart from the observation, the gait is designed based on the Zero Moment Point (ZMP) method and by considering three points related to the twisting trunk. A simulation and an experiment are carried out to verify the efficiency of the trot gait with twisting trunk. It is found that the twisting trunk helps the quadruped robot get larger stride length and further perform higher locomotion speed than that with rigid trunk.

Keywords

bionics    quadruped robots    twisting trunk    trot gait 

Full text is available at :https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42235-018-0085-x