Design of a new solution for the wheeled hopping robot

Abstract

In recent years many researchers are trying to combine wheeled movement with legged movement or hopping movement to strengthen the robots adaptability to environment. Hybrid robots are playing a more and more important role in our modern life. However, their controls are mostly complicated. So in this paper we present a new solution for the wheeled hopping robot. Based on the mechanical design, this robot has two movement modes: wheeled and hopping movement mode. While the center of gravity of the mechanism is under the wheels center, the wheeled hopping robot which is like a tumbler can keep its stability even when the wheels' velocity is zero. In this paper, we firstly introduce the description and design of the wheeled hopping robot. Then we explain how to choose the robot parameters and lastly we describe, how the robot through hopping, successfully traverses obstacles and ditches.