More recently, robot locomotion has been assessed by applying the potential energy of deformable robots. These robots moved by applying gravitational potential energy gradients and the storing/restoring of their bending potential energy. We apply a tensegrity structure in designing the deformable body of a locomotion robot to obtain high freedom of design. Tensegrity is a mechanical structure composed of a set of disconnected rigid elements connected by continuous tensional members. We realized rolling locomotion of a tensegrity robot by body deformation, which utilizes gravitational and tensile potential energy.
Fig.1: Prototype (12 struts)
Fig.2: Rolling using the body deformation
Movies
- Icosahedron: 6 struts （Condition 1） (MPEG 2.2MB)
- Icosahedron: 6 struts （Condition 2） (MPEG 2.2MB)
- Snub cube: 12 struts （Condition 1） (MPEG 3.2MB)
- Snub cube: 12 struts （Condition 2） (MPEG 3.1MB)
- Mizuho Shibata and Shinichi Hirai, "Moving Strategy of Tensegrity Robots with Semiregular Polyhedral Body", Emerging Trends in Mobile Robotics (CLAWAR2010), pp.359-366, 2010
- Mizuho Shibata and Shinichi Hirai, "Rolling Locomotion of Deformable Tensegrity Structure", Mobile Robotics: Solutions and Challenges (CLAWAR09), pp.479-486, 2009
- Mizuho Shibata, Fumio Saijyo, and Shinichi Hirai, "Crawling by Body Deformation of Tensegrity Structure Robots", Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp.4375-4380, 2009
- Locomotion Mechanism Driven by the Body Deformation: Young Scientists B (No.21760210) 2009 - 2011