| Jimmy Sastra Willy Giovanni Bernal Heredia Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics University of Pennyslvania Philadelphia, PA, 19103 |
Jonathan Clark Mechanical Engineering FAMU/FSU College of Engineering Tallahassee, FL, 32310 |
Mark Yim Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics University of Pennyslvania Philadelphia, PA, 19103 |
Reconfigurable Modular robots can adapt their morphologies and their gaits for locomotion through different environments, whether like a snake for moving through constrained spaces or in a wheel-like shape for efficient and fast rolling on flat terrain. This paper proposes a new, scalable biologically-inspired legged style of locomotion for this class of robots. Passively compliant leg attachments are utilized to achieve a dynamic running gait using body articulation. A dynamic simulation as well as experimental data showing that we have achieved stable dynamic locomotion is presented. Although the robot design and control strategy are, in principle, scalable to any number of leg pairs, results are given for a hexapedal robot configuration. This prototype represents the first example of dynamic legged locomotion driven only by body articulation.