Staircase-climbing capability-based dimension design of a hexapod robot

Abstract Robot dimension design based on staircase-climbing is essential but seldom studied for legged robots. Incorporating the staircase-climbing in design is novel and relevant. The robot dimension, including the leg dimension and the body dimension, affects the staircase-climbing capability. This paper studies the dimension design for a novel hexapod robot. In dimension design for the leg mechanisms, the critical problem is to handle the interferences between the leg mechanism and staircase. Firstly, all interferences in climbing a staircase are classified into three cases. The corresponding three conditions to avoid the three interference cases are originally proposed. Secondly, the dimension of a single leg mechanism is derived analytically according to the staircase size under the premise of avoiding the three interference cases. The robot body coordinates the leg mechanisms and affects the ability to adjust the tilting angle in climbing a staircase. The body dimension is derived analytically with the constraints of leg workspace, leg-staircase interferences, and the static stability margin. The design example of a hexapod robot climbing 35-degree and 45-degree staircases is given and verified by simulations and experiments.