RSAW, A Highly Reconfigurable Wave Robot: Analysis, Design, and Experiments

摘要

This letter presents a highly reconfigurable wave robot named RSAW. RSAW is a reconfigurable version of our recently developed single actuator wave robot (SAW) that produces a continuous wave motion. The robot is composed of two waves attached to each other through an actuated universal (U) joint which allows the robot to rotate its yaw to steer its direction in the plane and to raise its pitch to climb over obstacles. Its symmetrical design enables the RSAW to operate even when flipped over. This letter presents the design of the robot, an analysis of its kinematics and dynamics and a prototype of RSAW that was designed based on this analysis. We describe multiple experiments using the robot to verify its crawling and climbing capabilities, and its turning radius. The RSAW can travel at a speed of up to 19 cm/s and climb over obstacles that are 10 cm high. The RSAW can crawl on multiple challenging surfaces including grass, gravel, stones and dirt (see video).