Kinematic Modelling and Structural Analysis of a Spherical Robot: BALL-E

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a spherical mobile robot which is capable of executing rolling and walking motions. The proposed robot can also transform into a quadruped based on the terrain conditions. The advantage of combining these motions in the robot is that it improves the collision recovery and manoeuvrability over multiple terrains. Various conceptual designs are developed, and concept scoring is carried out to find the best design. The kinematic analysis is presented for the chosen design using the Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) method. The inverse kinematics is solved using MATLAB and the corresponding robot configurations are plotted. The structural analysis of the robot is also completed using ANSYS Workbench.