Reconfigurable wheel-legged robot

Abstract

The paper deals with the reconfigurable robot design. A robot should be able to locomote via using wheels on a smooth terrain and locomote via using legs on a rough terrain or if necessary also cross an obstacle. The transformation between legs and wheels is a suitable concept to an unknown environment with obstacles. Wheeled locomotion is better from the viewpoint of energy consumption. A design of a wheeled mode of the robot was the first part of the design. The design of a quarter model of the mobile robot in a legged mode has been also made. A position vector of an end point (wheel) has been determined via using the Denavit-Hartenberg principle. The realised model is used mainly for an experimental study of the reconfigurable robot designed principle. A locomotion strategy of the robot has been proposed.