Dynamics of a wheeled robot driven by an unbalanced rotor and equipped with the overrunning clutches

Abstract

Vibration-driven locomotion principles are currently of significant interest among designers and researchers dealing with mobile robotics. Among a great variety of robots chasses, the wheeled ones are the most commonly used. The major purpose of this study consists in defining the dynamic characteristics of the wheeled vibration-driven robot equipped with the centrifugal (inertial) vibration exciter (unbalanced rotor) and overrunning clutches ensuring the robot’s wheels rotation in one direction. The research methodology is divided into three basic stages: developing the robot’s dynamic diagram and deriving the motion equations followed by numerical modeling in the Mathematica software; designing the 3D-model and simulating the robot motion in the SolidWorks software; creating the experimental prototype and conducting the full-scale tests. The obtained results show the time dependencies of the robot’s body acceleration, speed, and displacement at certain operational conditions. The main scientific novelty of the paper resides in substantiating the relationships between the robot’s design parameters and its dynamic characteristics under different operational conditions. The performed investigations can be useful for researchers and designers dealing with vibration-driven robots, capsule-type locomotion systems, pipelines inspecting vehicles, etc.