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A prominent field of robotics is exploratory vehicles intended to be sent to other celestial bodies to autonomously survey new areas and collect data. For such exploratory vehicles, there is a large importance placed upon multi-terrain navigation and self-reliance, as they cannot depend on outside assistance if they become overturned or stuck. It is also important that they are as compact and as lightweight as possible because of the extreme cost associated with sending payloads to space and beyond. Because of these criteria, folding or kinematic chain robots have many distinct advantages: they locomote via full body rolling, preventing their body from bottoming out on obstacles as many wheel and tread driven robots can; they can perform a variety of gaits to adapt to their current environment, making them better suited for multi-terrain navigation; and they can fold down flat for compact storage. Within this paper, a hexagonal kinematic loop robot is proposed to satisfy these criteria. A series of experiments were performed to quantify differences in the variety of rolling gaits used as well as the difference between unique tread geometries and control methods. Building off these results, subsequent chapters focus on variations on this design to improve upon its shortcomings. These include adding the ability to steer the robot, improving its ability to carry a payload, and improving its ability to traverse harsher terrains. Each of the ten variations are discussed in terms of their design, control, locomotion, and performance, as observationally evaluated during testing in a multitude of terrains. In the end it is found that two distinct evolutions of the robot presented represent promising prototypes for exploratory robots, and lessons learned from the development of each of the variations can be used to improve upon the designs in the future. |
