Design and implementation of a quadruped robot insect

Abstract

In order to cultivate the comprehensive skills of students to develop a robot system, this paper proposed a low cost and simple robot system. The students designed and implemented a quadruped robot insect_ named robot-K. The electrical parts of robot-K contain servo motors, a DC-brushless motor, one microcontroller, a wireless communication module, an electronic speed control device and one battery. The mechanical parts include the Scotch yoke, aluminum plates, plastic tubes, cranks, steel cables and bricks. The robot-K can imitate the gait of cockroaches and users can remotely control its speed and moving directions. There are 8 levels of speed control and 16 rotating angles for each servo motor. The experimental results demonstrate that robot-K can walk on a rugged and tilted terrain. The maximum and minimum speeds of the robot-K are 2.8 m/s and 1.1 m/s, respectively. By the research process, students learned to integrate the skills of programming, driving motors and assembling the mechanisms.