Planning for Locomotion Mode Switching Based on Energy Optimization with a Wheel-legged Mobile Robot

Wheel-legged robots are widely used because they combine the ability of wheeled robots with high locomotion efficiency and legged robots with high environmental adaptability. However, it is important and challenging for wheel-legged robots to rationally plan the switching between wheeled and legged locomotion modes. In this paper, we propose a planning model based on energy optimization to solve the locomotion mode switching process with the self-developed wheel-legged robot (Mobot-WL) as the research object. The core idea is to solve a smooth and less energy-consuming locomotion mode switching trajectory based on the stabilization of the motion process. Simulation results and experiments with Mobot-WL show that the algorithm can plan the locomotion mode switching efficiently and robustly.