Bio-Inspired Design and Kinematic Analysis of Dung Beetle-Like Legs

Abstract

The African dung beetle Scarabaeus galenus can use its front legs to walk and manipulate or form a dung ball. The interesting multifunctional legs have not been fully investigated or even used as inspiration for robot leg design. Thus, in this paper, we present the development of real dung beetle-like front legs based on biological investigation. As a result, each leg consists of three main segments which were built using 3D printing. The segments were combined with in total four active DOFs in order to mimic locomotion and object manipulation of the beetle. Kinematics analysis of the leg was also performed to identify its workspace as well as to design its trajectory. To this end, the study contributes not only novel multifunctional robotic legs but also the methodology of the bio-inspired leg design.