The Flatworm-like Mesh Robot WORMESH-II: Planning and Control of Lateral Walking Locomotion

Lateral walking of newly introduced flatworm-like multiple pedal wave locomotory robot called WORMESH-II is presented in this paper. Use of multiple traveling waves is the significance of WORMESH-II, and it has been discussed previously. Pedal wave locomotion of WORMESH-II displayed a relative motion between the ground and contact points that is not efficient for locomoting in gravel and sandy terrains. Hence, it needed to develop a locomotion gait with joint mechanism and flexibility capable for multi-mode locomotion to use in such landscapes. In this study, lateral walking locomotion gait which facilitates WORMESH-II to move perpendicular to the wave propagation direction has been introduced. The locomotion features are similar to the statical walking of multi leg robot. The proposed locomotion gait was verified and tested successfully respectively using dynamic simulations and the prototype of WORMESH-II. Since there is no relative motion between the ground and contact points of the robot, the suggested lateral walking locomotion is better for locomoting in sandy and gravel surfaces.