Robotics: Robotic Motion

by Courtney Loughry

Submitted : Spring 2014

Robotic locomotion is the study of how to design robot appendages and control mechanisms to allow robots to move fluidly and efficiently.  This project focuses specifically on a four-wheeled robot using a piston-wheel system on one of its legs.  In this system, as the piston moves back and forth, the flywheel rotates.  The motion of the piston-wheel system can be examined by visualizing a triangle that is constantly changing dimensions.  The dimensions are related to the position using the law of cosines.  The derived position equation can be used to find the velocity and acceleration by taking the first and second derivatives respectively.  The movement of the system is characterized as a sinusoidal wave by plotting the linear velocity against the crank angle.

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