Two Bioinspired Mobile Manipulators with Rolling Locomotion

This paper deals with two novel structures for mobile robots. The original inspiration of the robots comes from a salamander and a specific kind of spiders. Our robots have some especial moving capabilities causing to increase the robot maneuverability. Indeed, the capability of rolling motion is added to ordinary quadruped robots. This capability causes increment in maneuvering of the robots. Manipulators can be embedded into the robots to add the ability of transferring materials into the shell and conducting some tasks such as repairing. In this paper, after analysis of motion principles of the rolling robots, their dynamic equations are derived. Different simulations of two bioinspired mobile robots are presented in order to scrutinize various capabilities of the proposed designs. Walking capabilities of the robots and their advantages are discussed in detail. The comprehensive simulation results of the robots in various motion modes are presented. Finally the first prototype is introduced to verify the motion mechanisms.