Effects of compliance in pedundulatory locomotion over granular substrates

Sfakiotakis, Michael and Chatzidaki, Avgousta and Evdaimon, Theodoros and Kazakidi, Asimina and Tsakiris, Dimitris P. (2016) Effects of compliance in pedundulatory locomotion over granular substrates. In: 24th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, 2016-06-21 - 2016-06-24. (https://doi.org/10.1109/MED.2016.7536061)

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Abstract

The present paper investigates the effect of compliance on the locomotion of a biologically-inspired soft-body pedundulatory robotic system, employing lateral undulations of its elongated body, which are augmented by the oscillation of sets of lateral appendages (parapodia), to propel itself on unstructured granular substrates. We explore control strategy alternatives for the robot to generate two different locomotor gaits by employing direct or retrograde lateral body waves, combined with appropriately coordinated parapodial motion (pedundulatory modes). Computational models of this class of robots have been devised, which demonstrate the effects of joint compliance on gait generation and on the characteristics of robot propulsion. A new three-segment soft-body robotic prototype has been developed, whose body was fabricated by molding polyurethane elastomers, and was tested extensively on an experimental sandbox, on various formations of the granular substrate, to compare the performance of stiff and compliant joints. Body and joint compliance were found to enhance the adaptability of the robot to environmental irregularities, however they may deteriorate the proper formation of the un-dulatory body wave, degrading somewhat system performance in terms of the attained velocities.

ORCID iDs

Sfakiotakis, Michael, Chatzidaki, Avgousta, Evdaimon, Theodoros, Kazakidi, Asimina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7124-4123 and Tsakiris, Dimitris P.;
  • Item type:Conference or Workshop Item(Paper)
    ID code:58805
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    8 August 2016
    Published
    19 April 2016
    Accepted
    23 February 2016
    Submitted
    Notes:(c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.
    Subjects:Technology > Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) > Bioengineering
    Department:Faculty of Engineering > Biomedical Engineering
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:24 Nov 2016 14:36
    Last modified:11 Nov 2024 16:49
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/58805
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