R-Crank: Amphibious all terrain mobile robot

Abstract

An amphibious all terrain mobile robot is required for disaster response tasks. In this paper, we propose “R-Crank”, which has a simple four wheels driving configuration with crank links, connecting to ipsilateral front and rear wheels so as to form parallel four-bar linkage systems. The crank links act as legs because their trajectory with respect to the ground become trochoid curve, which is commonly used as leg trajectories for a legged robot. These links achieve high terrain adaptability while maintaining simple structure of the wheeled robot. We developed a prototype model and carried out basic experiments. The robot achieved to climb 0.3 m of a step(76.9% of the wheel diameter), stairs and a snowy slope. In addition, we propose amphibious structure of crank links by installing multiple rigid paddles. The propulsive force generated by the crank links was measured and empirically derived the optimum parameters by using a small-sized experimental apparatus. Finally the robot equipped with the amphibious crank links achieved propulsion on water at 0.13 m/s. We also verified that the robot achieved going up and into water through stairs.