Design and analysis of a transformable spherical robot for multi-mode locomotion

Abstract

In this manuscript, a novel transformable spherical robot for multi-mode locomotion is proposed. The robot has the spherical shell and an internal driving unit for spherical rolling, and also has a quadruped unit for walking. The robot can change the locomotion mode between spherical rolling mode and the quadruped walking mode to adapt to varied terrains. Moreover, the analysis and simulation of the robot moving across the obstacle shows that hybrid driving mode has better mobile performance than basic driving mode. The experiments that the prototype moves in the real environment show that the robot could adapt more types of terrains.