Design And Implementation Of Inchworm-inspired Crawling Robot

With the development of science and technology, the production and life of human beings are gradually realizing automation and intelligence. Robot technology has greatly improved the production efficiency and living standard of human beings. In recent years, with the rapid development of robot technology, various robots are moving towards people's lives. Crawling robot is an important branch of robot technology. Because of its excellent performance, crawling robot is used to perform pipeline exploration, search and rescue missions. By analyzing the movement of inchworm, this paper developed a kind of inchworm-inspired crawling robot.According to the motion characteristics of the inchworm, a mechanical structure of the brush ruins search robot was designed. The robot could realize the periodic crawling movement relying on the flexible brush group and the reciprocating screw. The robot has a compact structure, and certain adaptability to the complicated environment.With micro controller as the core, the hardware part of the system could collect information of inertial sensors, infrared pyroelectric sensor, carbon dioxide concentration sensor, and control the motion through the motor drive board, communicate with upper computer through RS232 serial port. According to the requirement of the system, the selection and analysis of micro controller, sensor, motor and so on are carried out.The software part of the system includes two parts, the upper computer software and the lower computer software. Based on the Windows message mechanism, the upper computer software achieved many functions, such as the serial communication, the display of sensor information and motion track, motor controlling, and so on. The lower computer software complied in C language at Arduino IDE environment. The main function is collecting various sensor information and sent to the upper computer via RS232 serial communication, controlling the motion of the motor according to the received control command from the upper computer.We developed two prototype robots and completed the test experiment on its sports performance and search capabilities. The prototype robots ran well in the lab and simulated ruins environment. They can through the inclined slope of 20 degrees, and the maximum operating speed is 0.71m/min. They can collect video, heat release electric, the concentration of carbon dioxide and other sensor information in front of the robot, achieving the search function.