Communications of the ACM
Sprawling Wheel Leg Robot Crawls and Climbs
A sprawling robot developed at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel upgrades an earlier design's wheel-leg mobility so it can scale impediments.
Credit: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
A sprawling robot developed by David Zarrouk at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel upgrades an earlier design's wheel-leg mobility so it can scale impediments.
The Rising Sprawl-Tuned Autonomous Robot (RSTAR) features legs that "sprawl": they are angled downwards and outwards from the body.
The robot incorporates an additional degree of freedom so its body can move separately from the legs, shifting its center of mass without flipping over.
RSTAR can climb vertically up closely spaced walls and "crawl" through narrow gaps using a legged walking gait.
Zarrouk says the design incorporates a four-bar extension mechanism to move the center of mass in the fore-aft direction so RSTAR is more dynamically reconfigurable. "This interesting feature can also be used to increase stability or to intentionally pitch up or flip upside down" when necessary, he adds.
From IEEE Spectrum
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