A 2 degrees of freedom united propulsive mechanism for amphibious function inspired by frog's hindlimb

Abstract. Amphibious species of frogs are notable candidates to mimic for amphibious robotic design, as their swimming and sprawling locomotion is generated by the united propulsive mechanisms in which the hindlimbs play the dominant role. Although the propulsive system of frogs is not as complex as other amphibians, it is still difficult to employ the propulsive mechanism in robotic design due to the numerous degrees of freedom (DoF). This paper proposes a novel united propulsive mechanism to acquire the amphibious function inspired by the frog's hindlimb. The mechanism is a hybrid design combining a planar six-bar linkage, which is designed based on homotopy continuation and a spatial four-bar linkage. The DoF of the hindlimb-like mechanism are dramatically decreased to 2, with 1 each in the two sub-chains. Forward analysis is conducted to find the pose of the foot when two actuations are input. The improved analysis based on the geometrical features overcomes the multiplicity from the numerical computation. The inverse kinematic analysis is conducted to find the rotation of the input with a given pose of the foot. The aquatic function of the united propulsive mechanism is demonstrated based on the blade element theory, where the rotational speed and the projected area of the foot are fully active. The terrestrial function of the propulsive mechanism is validated with a specific gait.