In this book, we present the detailed design of mechanical walking robots that are driven by a single motor. These walkers rely on specially designed leg mechanisms coordinated by gear trains in order to walk, rather than multiple computer controlled motors per leg. The result is a simplified walking robot that provides a platform for other mechanical and electronic functions.
Two, four and six legged walkers are presented that implement different types of leg mechanisms and power trains. In each case, we provide drawings for a laser cut wood or acrylic chassis, 3D printed parts and a complete parts list. Several of the designs implement an additional motor for steering as well as electronic components and software for speed control.
Our goal is to provide enthusiasts of all backgrounds what they need to build a walking robot at home, to explore new design ideas, and, perhaps, to enjoy the operation of one of these robots as it moves across the ground.
I am pleased to provide the presentations from the 2012 National Science Foundation Workshop on 21st Century Kinematics. These presentations provide insight to the challenges and opportunities for research in mechanical systems and robotics.
The NSF Workshop on 21st Century Kinematics at the 2012 ASME IDETC Conference in Chicago, IL on August 11-12, 2012 consisted of a series of presentations and a book of supporting material prepared by the workshop contributors.
https://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Screen-Shot-2020-07-19-at-5.24.54-PM.png8321206Prof. McCarthyhttps://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mechanical-design-101LOGOf.pngProf. McCarthy2020-07-19 17:31:112020-07-19 17:33:27The Bored Robot: Controlling Two Drive Motors for a Walking Machine
The design and assembly of our four-legged mechanical walkers can yield single degree-of-freedom systems with so many redundant mates that it stalls SolidWorks’ Motion Analysis. For example, the walker shown in Figure 1 had 782 redundant mates. The procedure outlined below reduced the number of redundant mates to 114, and Motion Analysis executed efficiently.
Figure 1. A four-legged mechanical walker consisting of a body, drive train, and four-leg mechanisms.
Our walker consists of a body, drive train, and four legs. The legs mechanisms are identical but assembled as front-to-back mirror images. The component parts of this walker mates were assembled using mates to align and coordinate various subassemblies, resulting in a large number of redundant mates.
In order to reduce the number of redundant mates, we dissolve the subassemblies, combine rigid elements, and mate new subassemblies as follows.
Step 1
Dissolve all of the subassemblies in the walker. To do this, hover over each assembly and select the menu item Dissolve Assembly. See Figure 1.
Figure 2. Selected parts for new subassembly.
Step 2
Form new subassemblies for each leg, the drive train, and the body. See Figure 2. To do this, first, hover over the part, press “tab” to hide the part in order to identify it easily; and then, select all of the hidden parts, and right-click to open menu and select Form New Subassembly.
Figure 3. Within each new subassembly form subassemblies of parts that do not move relative to each other.
Step 3
Within each new subassembly combine parts that do not move relative to each other. See Figure 3. The tree structure should consist of separate assemblies of rigid elements with the remaining mates between the assemblies. See Figure 4.
Figure 4. The assembly should consist of subassemblies that move as rigid elements relative to each other.
Step 4
Repeat Step 3 for all of the new subassemblies. The result is shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5. The subassemblies that define the mechanical walker. Notice that the tree structure consists of subassemblies and no individual parts.
Step 5
Delete the mates in the main assembly. Introduce the mates required for movement using hinge mates, rather than coincident or concentric mates, where possible.
Step 6
Make the subassemblies at the top-level flexible. Right-click on the assembly and select the flexible assembly icon .
The result of this procedure is a system with 114 redundant mates that Motion Analysis can process effectively. The result is that animation shown below.
https://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Screen-Shot-2020-07-19-at-5.12.37-PM.png7991600Prof. McCarthyhttps://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mechanical-design-101LOGOf.pngProf. McCarthy2020-07-19 17:15:522020-07-19 17:39:58How to Fix SW Motion Analysis Error: Too Many Redundant Constraints
Specify three positions for the foot of a leg consisting of a hip and knee joint;
Use three position synthesis to design a four-bar function generator to guide the hip joint;
Then use three position synthesis to design a second four-bar function generator to guide the knee joint;
And finally assemble the linkage to determine the trajectory of the foot. Adjusting the lengths of the leg segments, the position of the hip, the specified positions of the input cranks, and the position of the coupler attachments to the input cranks vary the resulting foot trajectory. An example leg mechanism is shown at the end of this video.
Part 1:4 Setting up the design
Part 2:4 Synthesis of the hip function generator.
Part 3:4 Synthesis of the knee function generator.
Part 4:4 Assembly of the leg mechanism, exploration of design variations, and an example final leg design.
https://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Screen-Shot-2019-05-23-at-4.16.12-PM.png10411600Prof. McCarthyhttps://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mechanical-design-101LOGOf.pngProf. McCarthy2019-05-23 16:27:142019-05-25 12:37:37Construction of a Leg Mechanism
Prof Haijun Su at Ohio State University had his students design walking machines for their final project in ME 5751. Here are videos of four project teams from that event.
Team A:
Team B:
Team C:
Team D:
https://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Screen-Shot-2019-04-16-at-2.20.21-PM.jpg7401304Prof. McCarthyhttps://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mechanical-design-101LOGOf.pngProf. McCarthy2019-04-16 14:22:582019-05-25 12:08:24Walking Machine Class Projects: Ohio State ME 5751
This is a Geogebra animation of the leg mechanism for the Strider walker. It is a symmetrical design that allows the formation of a second foot assembly by simply adding two more bars.
Strider leg mechanism.
This is an animation of the leg mechanism in the TrotBot walker.
TrotBot leg mechanism.
https://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Screen-Shot-2019-04-10-at-10.55.22-AM.png4221600Prof. McCarthyhttps://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mechanical-design-101LOGOf.pngProf. McCarthy2019-04-10 11:03:032019-05-25 12:13:41Strider and TrotBot at DIYWalkers.com
I am pleased to report that a paperback version my book Introduction to Theoretical Kinematics: the mathematics of movement is on-line with Amazon.com. I have updated it to reflect current terminology in Robotics and to correct all of the errors that I could identify. Please select the link Introduction to Theoretical Kinematics.
https://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Amazon-ITTK.jpg8001600Prof. McCarthyhttps://mechanicaldesign101.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mechanical-design-101LOGOf.pngProf. McCarthy2018-07-20 13:36:232018-07-20 13:39:16Introduction to Theoretical Kinematics, paperback on Amazon.com
I found this excerpt of the TEDx talk by Bruno Siciliano describing the growing research area of Roboethics to be fascinating and important. Prof. Siciliano is the Director of the ICAROS Center at the Universita degli Studi di Napoli Federico II. He is co-editor with Oussama Khatib of the first and second editions of the Springer Handbook of Robotics. The entire talk is available at the link Robotics and Napoli.