Rotational legged locomotion

In this paper we presented a novel, agile robot mechanism, which we call a rotopod, which combines aspects of wheeled and legged locomotion. A general description of how a tripedal rotopod can be made to step, rotating the mechanism about one leg, and moving the center of the mechanism, is presented. The concept of a gait for this mechanism is defined, and is used to show how extremely agile the mechanism can be. Specific resistance is employed as a way to explore the relative efficiency of this mechanism versus a wheel. Finally, we describe our first prototype rotopod and report on experiments conducted to characterize stepping