A deployable robot based on the Bricard linkage

Abstract

A large variety of transformable robots were proposed in the past decades, which were mainly based on reconfigurable mechanisms. Meanwhile, deployable structures have been extensively applied to various fields, such as aerospace industry, civil engineering, and medical engineering. This paper presents a new method to integrate deployable structures to the design of transformable robots. A threefold-symmetric Bricard linkage is analyzed and used as the body structure of the robot. Gait control is then achieved by using the deploying and folding motion of the Bricard linkage. Experimental results show that the robot is capable of moving through limited space with single degree-of-freedom (DOF).