Bimodal mobility actuated by inertial forces with surface elastic bodies in microgravity

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents bimodal mobility actuated by inertial forces with elastic bodies for an exploration robot in a microgravity environment. The proposed bimodal locomotion mechanism can selectively achieve vibration propulsion or rotational hopping mode based on centrifugal force and reaction torque exerted by the control of a single eccentric motor, where the rotational hopping is the primary locomotion mode for practical applications. The bimodal mobility performance under microgravity is experimentally examined using an air-floating testbed. Furthermore, we also present theoretical modeling of the bimodal mobility system, and the model is verified by comparison with the experiments.