Legless locomotion for legged robots

Abstract

We propose a locomotion technique for a legged robot that is high-centered, i.e., a robot stuck on a block with its legs dangling in air. By using its legs as reaction masses, the robot might be able to rock and roll on its stomach and incrementally move forward off the block, a form of legless locomotion using halteres. With locomotion of high-centered robots using body attitude oscillations as motivation, this paper focuses on studying the interplay between leg motions and body roll-pitch-yaw dynamics. We present results from simulation of two simplified models in which body motion is restricted to the roll and roll-yaw space respectively.