Development and Control of the Multi-Legged Robot MANTIS

This paper presents the multi-legged robot MANTIS which is developed within the project LIMES at the DFKI RIC and the University of Bremen. In particular, we describe the mechanical design, the sensor setup, electronics, and computing hardware. Furthermore we give a short introduction to the software framework for simulation-based motion behavior generation and optimization for such kinematically complex robots as well as to the online locomotion control and evaluation approach for context-based utilization and adaptation of these behaviors. Finally, applied methodologies and experiments allowing to assess and reduce the difference between observed and simulated behavior of the robot and its subsystems are presented.