Tripod gait planning of a rimless-wheeled robot with changeable spokes

This paper presents an innovative locomotion concept for rough terrain based on six motorized rimless wheels. Different from traditional wheels, the rimless wheels can not only provide more traction on uneven earth's surface, but also have advanced adaptation to the complex terrain. In order to make the robot move stably and efficiently, the design proposes a novel mechanism of the rimless-wheeled robot and motion planning, including running and turning. Especially, the control strategy takes the motion planning of an unequal number of spokes on each wheel into consideration. In the experiments, the results show that the robot is able to climb about 1~1.5 times high stairs and travel on rough terrain without its center of gravity up and down intensely. Furthermore, some motion parameters are optimized to improve the efficiency of the robot during its running and turning.