MACHINE DESIGN

The objective of the Walking Robot Project is to provide a locomotion platform suitable for use in difficult  terrain, both man-made and natural.  The platform should be robust and agile enough to swiftly traverse such terrains as forests, stairways, bomb and earthquake sites. Autonomy implies that the robot is self-contained in terms of its energy and computer requirements.  Not only does this project provide a stimulating, challenging, and  real world environment for  research on autonomous systems, at the same time we achieve widely applicable results in terms of control, robustness and mechatronics design.

Initial work in our project, which began 1996, focused on the choice of locomotion platform. This resulted in two robot prototypes, one legged  (M3L) and one wheeled (Sleipner2).  Based on an evaluation of these robots, and a study of other existing vehicles, we choose  to pursue legged systems. This was primarily due to their potential for outperforming other wheeled and tracked vehicles in very harsh terrain, as well as the immense challenge in producing such systems.  A four-legged configuration was chosen since that is the minimal number of legs allowing the robot to walk with one leg at a time while the other 3  provide a triangle of support. This passively (or statically) stable gait pattern is slow but minimizes the chance of falling.  Using active (or dynamic) stability, on the other hand, allows the robot to run while retaining balance through its movements. Therefore, having 4 legs allows our robots to achieve both passive and active stability without the added complexity resulting from having 5 or more legs.
The design of  our first robot, Warp1, was initiated by students in an advanced course in Mechatronics and Machine Design in May 1998 (they called the platform Sleipner3). Since then it has been  improved and completed by members of the WARP group.  Warp1 walked for the first time in September 1999 but some problems with the platforms robustness was discovered and corrected over the next few months. The robot was walking and trotting robustly in the beginning of the summer 2000. See the movies for some examples.