Parameter design and optimization for mobile mechanism of a transformable wheel-track robot

Abstract

According to the terrain features of the irregular environment, we propose a novel mobile mechanism of the transformable wheel-track robot (TWTR). The TWTR can adapt autonomously to the irregular environment by transforming the track configuration or by changing the locomotion mode between track mode and wheel mode. The TWTR mechanism consists of a control system unit and two symmetric transformable wheel-track units. As the mobile mechanism of TWTR, the wheel-track unit is composed of a transformable track mechanism and a drive wheel mechanism. The drive system of the wheel-track unit provides two outputs in different form only by one servo motor, or rather enables the wheel-track unit to have the abilities to transform the configuration of the track and to make the robot move by wheel or by track. In this paper, we design the parameters of track mechanism by parametric optimization based on genetic algorithm, and design the parameters of the drive wheel mechanism according to the configuration features of the wheel-track unit. The validity of the parameters is demonstrated by simulation on the robot transforming the track configuration and changing the locomotion mode.