Design of a Hopping Robot with Its Kinetics and Dynamics Analysis

Referring to hopping animals in nature, this paper presents a newly designed hopping robot. This robot can adapt to a variety of complex terrains more effectively than wheeled robots. The bionic jumping mechanism could enlarge the take-off velocity using a six-bar linkage, which can increase the jumping length as well as height. The hopping robot’s kinetic model is established and analyzed since we need to magnify the ratio of kinetic energy (related to initial take-off speed) to elastic potential energy (stored in torsion spring). Subsequently, we have successfully built an interactive simulation platform on Adams software, which enables us to run five sets of takeoff angles’ simulations by stroboscopic shooting. The distance and height of each leap are recorded for further analysis. Since the hopping robot will probably roll over when taking off, the landing impact may lead to the robot’s malfunction. Therefore, we introduce a PID attitude-control method into the robot, referring to the satellite attitude-adjustment method. Based on the kinetic model, a Matlab-Adams collaborative simulation platform is built to simulate this procedure. As a result, the hopping robot could jump according to the preprogrammed distance and height without rolling over.