A Pendulum-Driven Legless Rolling Jumping Robot

04/23/2023

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by   Jake Buzhardt, et al.

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In this paper, we present a novel rolling, jumping robot. The robot consists of a driven pendulum mounted to a wheel in a compact, lightweight, 3D printed design. We show that by using the driven pendulum to change it's weight distribution, the robot is able to obtain significant rolling speed, achieve jumps of up to 2.5 body lengths vertically, and also clear horizontal distances of over 6 body lengths while jumping. The robot's dynamic model is derived and simulation results indicate that it is consistent with the motion and jumping observed on the robot. The ability to both roll and jump effectively using a minimalistic design makes this robot unique and could inspire the use of similar mechanisms on robots intended for applications in which agile locomotion on unstructured terrain is necessary, such as disaster response or planetary exploration.