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Modeling and simulation for designing a line walking chameleon-like legged robot

2022 , Ponce, Hiram , Acevedo, Mario , Martinez-Villaseñor, Lourdes , Díaz Ramos, Gabriel , Mayorga Acosta, Carlos

Legged robots have been developed to move on uneven terrains. They can move smoother and step over obstacles easily, and they are more versatile in various environmental scenarios. These features make them desirable for maintenance and/or search-and-rescue tasks where mobility is restricted on these complex terrains. A problem arises when legged robots are required to walk on the top of narrow support, e.g. thin beams or tubes. In this work, we present the design of a line walking legged robot for narrowed support. To achieve this goal, we get inspiration from the chameleon locomotion. From these observations, we simulate the robot, design an intelligent control strategy for self-balancing and walking, and we implement a robot prototype. The experimental results show that the balance controller provides a tilt angle of 2.24±2.21∘, while the robot walks in a straight line with a maximum offset of 3.0 cm and with a walking velocity of 0.2 cm/s. Our results demonstrate that the robot can move on narrowed support lines. We anticipate that the design of legged robots inspired by the chameleon locomotion might open wider possibilities for rescue and maintenance missions. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

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Design of a Non-Actuator Soft Gripper for a Chameleon-Like Robot

2021 , Ponce, Hiram , Martinez-Villaseñor, Lourdes , Mayorga Acosta, Carlos

Four-legged robots are terrestrial mobile robots widely applied in tasks of navigation that imply complex mobility, the difficulty of obstacle avoidance, efficient energy management, or handling the speed of motion. In previous work, we designed and implemented a prototype of a robot inspired by the biomechanics of the chameleon, for future applications in rescue and maintenance. But, the legs of the prototype slip into the contact surface, resulting in the diminishing of the locomotion performance. Hence, it is necessary to add a gripper in the tip of the legs, like a prehensile hand, for avoiding relative sliding between the legs and the surface. Thus, in this paper, we propose the first soft gripper designed for the chameleon-like robot. The key feature of the gripper is its activation without any actuator due to size restrictions and the prevention of using pneumatic or hydraulic actuators. To validate the proposal, we simulate the gripper and we run a finite element analysis, providing us insights into the soft gripper model. © 2021 IEEE.