Hexotica - The Design and Implementation of a Small Walking Robot

Summary

Research into walking robots has become increasingly important. As robots begin to move outside the controlled environments of laboratories and factories into the more dynamic environments, it is important that they are able to navigate through irregular terrain. Walking robots have a significant advantage over wheeled robots in that they can navigate over much more difficult terrain and adjust their stability to adapt to varying terrain conditions. The purposes of the walking robot project are to:

• build a modular mechanical system capable of replicating the walking motion of biological entities
• develop a distributed control architecture to break up the control problem into simple sub-problems
• fully document the project to allow future work to be carried out by other students using this research platform

The physical system can be split into three main categories: mechanical design, hardware control design, and software design. These three distinct parts are discussed separately. They work together as a system to achieve a particular walking motion. The walking gait used by the system depends on decisions made by the software. Currently, there is no sensory feedback from the environment, so the robot can not make informed decisions about how to move. In the future, the robot should be able to adjust its walking gait for different types of terrain so that stability is maintained. It should also be able to make decisions about where to walk, based on goals determined within the software and obstacle avoidance strategies.

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