Configuration Design And Performance Analysis Of A Modular Rolling Robot

Rolling robots,as a novel and specialized type of mobile robot,primarily rely on rolling to complete task assignments.They are distinct from traditional types of robots such as legged robots,tracked robots,jumping robots,and biomimetic robots,as they possess unique environmental adaptability and continuous motion.Various configurations of rolling robots have emerged,including spherical,wheeled,cylindrical,ellipsoidal,and specialized robots that achieve flipping through structural deformations.The configurations and motion patterns of rolling robots continue to evolve,attracting attention and research from scholars and developers both domestically and internationally.A modular rolling robot based on a three-degree-of-freedom parallel mechanism unit is proposed in this paper,and the design of robot configuration,motion performance and kinematic analysis,virtual prototype integration and simulation experiments,conceptual prototype development,and physical experiments are carried out.Firstly,based on the performance analysis of each parallel unit module,a modular rolling robot prototype was designed using the theory of graphic recombination,and its structure was further refined by determining a series of rolling robot configurations with three,four,five,and six modular units.The driving mechanism of robots with different numbers of modules was analyzed from the perspectives of structural complexity,drive diversity,motion flexibility,and stability.Secondly,based on the analysis of the motion performance of modular rolling robots,a kinematic model of the robot was constructed.The gait and driving principles of typical movements,such as variable wheel diameter motion,planar straight rolling motion,turning motion,and uphill motion,were analyzed.Multiple gaits were identified for each of the typical movements.Again,considering the factors of the configuration and motion characteristics of modular rolling robots,the second type of Lagrangian equation method was applied to conduct dynamic analysis on the fixed wheel diameter rolling motion and variable wheel diameter rolling motion of modular rolling robots,respectively,and establish a dynamic model.Simultaneously,using the ADAMS software,a modular rolling robot motion simulation platform was constructed to simulate its various movements,and the simulation results were analyzed and verified through preliminary experiments.Finally,based on the load-bearing capacity test of the parallel unit module,a conceptual prototype of the robot was developed,and a robot drive control interface was developed using MATLAB to build various drive motion control systems.Different gait,scenario,and mode experiments were conducted,and the experimental results were analyzed and explained.