Compared to wheeled or tracked robots, legged robots have the ability to move more easily over though terrain. Robots with sufficient number of legs and with the right choice of gait are also very stable. An example of legged animals that we try to mimic, are insects. In this thesis, I write about the process of developing a hexapod robot.
Controlling a hexapod robot is a big challenge. We have to control eighteen servo motors in real time. We know the end position of the legs which we need to convert to motor angles. For that we use inverse kinematics, a method well known in robotics. As well as a controller and motors, we also need to power the system and communicate wirelessly with a mobile device which acts as a remote control. To establish a wireless connection, a Bluetooth module was used. The module connects to a phone which is using a freely available mobile application.
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