Development and control of all direction jumping and rolling spherical robot

Abstract

This paper describes new mechanisms, principle, control methods and experimental results of the jumping and rolling spherical robot which has not any projection. The robot consists of spherical mono wheel, internal drive unit and internal jumping mechanism using a compression coil spring. Straight running is performed by movement of the centroid when the drive unit moves along the inner surface of the spherical wheel, and turning is performed by rotating of the drive unit and friction torque of the spherical wheel with the ground. Theoretical result of straight running and turning movement coincide with experimental results of the robot. Jumping movement is caused by impact force between whole internal mechanisms and the inner surface of the spherical wheel by releasing stored energy in the spring. It was confirmed experimentally that the new robot has high jumping faculty in addition to the basic movement of spherical robot. Furthermore, jumping in any oblique direction is performed by control the posture of internal mechanism, and it becomes possible for the robot to go up the steps of stairs in this way. Therefore, we conclude that the all direction jumping and rolling spherical robot which has not any projection is achieved, and expect that the robot is useful as a rescue robot which can correspond to a variety of use environments.

Keywords

• spherical monowheel robot
• moving robot
• jumping robot
• stair-climbing
• rescue robot