Design and implementation of a novel hybrid quadruped spherical mobile robot

Spherical mobile robots are a novel type of mobile robots having some advantages in motion over other ordinary mobile robots. The advantages can be related to their symmetric spherical shape. Despite many works being conducted in recent years on spherical mobile robots, it seems that finding the best driving mechanism with higher efficiency still needs much research. In this article, a novel type of spherical mobile robot is introduced. This robot has a hybrid structure of the spherical robots and ordinary four legged or quadruped robots. Adding legs to the spherical robot reduces some disadvantages of its behavior. After introduction of the mentioned robot, its dynamic model based on Lagrange equations is obtained. The accuracy of the developed dynamic model in tracking a trajectory is verified through a dynamic simulation. Experimental results in tracking a square trajectory is presented to show the verification.

► Design and software simulation of a novel quadruped spherical mobile robot. ► Analytic modeling of various dynamic motion modes. ► Implementation of the proposed robot and presentation of experimental results. ► Developing the system as a propulsion mechanism for more useful design.