CENTAURO: A Hybrid Locomotion and High Power Resilient Manipulation Platform

Despite the development of a large number of mobile manipulation robots, very few platforms can demonstrate the required strength and mechanical sturdiness to accommodate the needs of real-world applications with high payload and moderate/harsh physical interaction demands, e.g., in disaster-response scenarios or heavy logistics/collaborative tasks. In this letter, we introduce the design of a wheeled-legged mobile manipulation platform capable of executing demanding manipulation tasks, and demonstrating significant physical resilience while possessing a body size (height/width) and weight compatible to that of a human. The achieved performance is the result of combining a number of design and implementation principles related to the actuation system, the integration of body structure and actuation, and the wheeled-legged mobility concept. These design principles are discussed, and the solutions adopted for various robot components are detailed. Finally, the robot performance is demonstrated in a set of experiments validating its power and strength capability when manipulating heavy payload and executing tasks involving high impact physical interactions.