Design of a novel leg-wheel hexapod walking robot

Abstract

Hexapod walking robots have been widely addressed in the literature with a very large number of design and engineering solutions. However, specific design approaches and solutions are needed to cope with specific novel applications. This paper aims to address the design of a hexapod walking robot having exploration, architectonic survey, and maintenance of cultural heritage goods as its main application tasks. This specific case of study is addressed by carrying out a detailed design, which led to the construction of a novel hexapod walking robot, named Cassino Hexapod III. The proposed robot is composed of hybrid legs of a modular anthropomorphic architecture with omni-wheels as feet at its extremity. The proposed design and engineering solutions can overcome the limits of other existing prototypes and to fulfil the specific application requirements and constraints with a cost-effective and user-friendly solution. The proposed novel solutions have also originated an Italian patent No. 102014902238772.