Development of quadruped walking robot with spherical shell-mechanical design for rotational locomotion

We have proposed and developed a new quadruped walking robot with a spherical shell, called “QRoSS”. QRoSS is a transformable robot that can store its legs in the spherical shell. The shell not only absorbs external forces from all directions, but also improves mobile performance because of its round shape. In rescue operations at a disaster site, carrying robots into a site is dangerous for operators because doing so may result in a second accident. If QRoSS is used, instead of carrying robots in, they are thrown in, making the operation safe and easy. We developed QRoSS-I and conducted basic experiments to verify performance which includes landing, rising and walking through a series of movements. This paper reports details of a mechanical design to perform a rotational locomotion using spherical shell and development of the prototype model of QRoSS-II. We discuss the rising motion and the rotational locomotion from the results of Basic experiments.