A Bioinspired Paddle-Wheeled Leg Amphibious Robot With Environment-Adaptive Autonomously

Abstract

Enhancing the high-speed dynamic performance and adaptive capabilities of amphibious robots in complex and amphibious environments is of utmost importance. A bioinspired paddle-wheeled leg amphibious robot that is environment-adaptive autonomously has been proposed and developed to tackle such a challenge. The designed robot features a composite paddle-wheeled leg structure and a switching mechanism. This design significantly improves the robot's adaptability to diverse and challenging terrains while showcasing exceptional water propulsion performance. Meanwhile, an autonomous switching of water and land modes based on torque feedback is proposed to achieve autonomous identification of land and water. Finally, we introduce a Hopf oscillator-based central pattern generator control strategy to assist the robot in transitioning to a hexapod gait effectively and smoothly after steering. Experiments are conducted to assess the robot's locomotive capabilities on various terrains. These tests have also evaluated the robot's capability to switch autonomously between land and water modes. The findings confirm the design's exceptional performance and validate its innovative features.