Design and Control of a Novel Leg-Arm Multiplexing Mobile Operational Hexapod Robot

A novel legged robot with 6 limbs driven by 20 proprioceptive motors, named SDUHex, is proposed in this letter. The limbs located at the middle of the robot can work as manipulators or locomotors. The topology design of the multi-mode robot is introduced and the kinematics and dynamics of the robot leg is analysed. A hierarchical optimized whole body controller with virtual model active compliance, called VM-WBC, is proposed. This control method unified the foot locomotion and arm operation. The terrain adaptation strategy is proposed to improve the non-flat terrain passability. A series of locomotion and operation experiments are carried out on SDUHex to test the designed robot and control method. Robust locomotion of the robot is verified by lateral impact recovery and slope terrain adaptation experiments. Arm operation of the robot including single-arm pushing and dual-arm picking are experimented to highlight the novel multiplexing function of the robot limbs.