Design and locomotion characteristic analysis of a novel tensegrity hopping robot*

In consideration of the poor locomotion ability of most traditional tensegrity robot, a novel tensegrity hopping robot powered by push-pull electromagnets was proposed with better locomotivity. It is able to conduct stable consecutive progressing action and turning action through hopping. This paper covers the structural design, theoretical modeling of the robot’s hopping process, as well as its self-righting analysis, simulation and experimental verification. The average moving speed and relative moving speed were measured to be 0.334m/s and 0.641 body length/s respectively, which obviously surpass the general moving ability of most traditional tensegrity robot. In addition, the robot was also validated to have good self-righting characteristic for stable consecutive hopping. Thus this robot can be potentially applied for search, rescue, detection, etc. in outdoor and unstructured environment.