A comprehensive study on the locomotion characteristics of a metameric earthworm-like robot. Fang, H., Li, S., Wang, K., W., & Xu, J. Multibody System Dynamics, 34(4):391-413, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 2015.
A comprehensive study on the locomotion characteristics of a metameric earthworm-like robot [pdf]Paper  A comprehensive study on the locomotion characteristics of a metameric earthworm-like robot [link]Website  abstract   bibtex   
This research is a comprehensive study on the correlations between the locomo- tion characteristics and the gait patterns of a metameric earthworm-like robot. The paper is divided into two parts: modeling and gait generation are the focuses of Part A; relationship among physical parameters, gait designs and dynamic behavior of the robot, as well as gait optimization and experimental verification are the core problems presented in Part B. The results of the research contribute to the design and control of earthworm-like robots. In the first part of the paper, inspired by earthworms’ morphology structure and based on the idea of integrating actuator and anchor into an individual body segment, a general N-segment kinematic model of the earthworm-like robot is developed. Kinematics of a sin- gle segment and the locomotion mechanism of the whole robot are investigated. Then the gait generation is studied for a general case. Gait parameters and their constraints are iden- tified, and a gait generation algorithm is put forward following themechanism of retrograde peristalsis waves. After that, considering non-ideal anchors and non-ideal actuators, a dy- namic model with anisotropic Coulomb dry friction is developed. Critical conditions for actuator-overload and anchor-slippage are derived, respectively. The constructed kinematic and dynamic models, the gait generation algorithm and the critical conditions obtained in this study provide a sound basis for earthworm-like robot design and the follow-up gait analysis presented in Part B. H.

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