Design of the locomotive mechanism by analysis on behavior of pill bugs for a small robot

Abstract

Reconnaissance robots can reduce the danger of hazardous places by providing information before human personnel take action. For the usage, robot platform should be small and light. However, this fact leads to a scaling issue with terrain that landscape poses a huge obstacle for the vehicle. The problem can be solved by the inspiration of nature. This paper presents design of the locomotive mechanism inspired by Pill bugs. The mechanism was designed by the principles of a pill bug's locomotion and experiments were conducted to validate the mechanism. © ICROS 2012.