Design and simulation of a turtle performing robot for robotic theater

According to the created robot theatre script, a turtle robotic system was developed for performance at digital stage. In this paper, we designed a turtle robot to play a key role of the theater. This robot is composed of four 3-DOF modularized lightweight legs, a flexible neck with continuous curvature, three telescopic spring brackets, an aluminum torso frame and a control system. The legs are driven by the synchronous belts. The motors and their drivers of all the three joints of each leg are mounted on the leg's front end, which is connected to the torso. Hence, the mass and moment of inertia of each leg are largely reduced, improving the efficiency of movement. Based on the design, we derived the kinematics equations and planned the coordinated gait. Finally, we created the dynamic model of the robot. Then, typical cases are simulated to analyze the function and performance of the robot. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the design.