Modular Reconfigurable Robot Motion Planning Method

Motion planning is one of the key techniques for the research of modular reconfigurable robot, whose motional function is affected by planning better or not directly.Modular reconfigurable robot can be used extensively to meet the demands of many working environments. The main reason is that it many different shapes. The robot discussed in this thesis can be changed into three types of shapes. They are snake-like shape, caterpillar-like shape and four-legged shape. Therefore the robot can execute three motion patterns- snake-like creeping, caterpillar-like rolling and four-legged walking.In this paper three motion patterns of the robot are analyzed and planned. The three planning methods are different because the motion patterns are not same, but the thought of saving energy is same. For snake-like creeping of the robot, the motion model is similar to sine wave, they are regular, repeating and cycle. Therefore, each joint angle should be planned at different moment in a cycle. For robot caterpillar-like rolling, its motion model is similar to the caterpillar motion when the tank is moving. The motions also are regular, repeating and cycle. So the planning method is similar.The four-legged walking of modular reconfigurable robot is planned emphasis in this thesis. The motion planning method is on the base of kinematics calculation. At the first, the robot is analyzed at the view of kinematics and kinematics equations of each leg are made out. Then make out each joint angle with anti-kinematics. At last, to examine whether the robot can meet the demand of walking stably, the stable of the robot is analyzed.In the end, in order to examine the motion planning method for the four-legged walking, this paper simulates four-legged walking planning. The simulation result testifies the feasibility and validation for the method. And the three motion patterns are tested by experiment. The result shows that this set of planning method is reasonable.