Design and Experiment of a Wheel-Fin Hybrid Amphibious Robot

The amphibious robot is capable of operating in terrestrial, aquatic and transitional areas, making it suitable for deployment in complex and unstructured and environment. To enhance the propulsion speed, obstacle surmounting ability and adaptability of amphibious robot, a wheel-fin hybrid amphibious robot is proposed in this paper. This design features a self-adaptive climbing wheel unit and a pair of bionic undulating fins, enabling the robot to achieve remarkable speed on both land and underwater, as well as excellent obstacle crossing and water-land transition capabilities. Additionally, the robot utilizes a unique tail wheel mechanism to adjust its heading angle. The structure design of the robot and separate propulsion units are introduced first. The multi-mode motion principle in various environments is analyzed, followed by the realization of the hardware mechatronic system. The performance of the robot in land propulsion, underwater propulsion, obstacle climbing, and cross-media movement was tested. The experimental results validated the design scheme and demonstrated that the robot possesses good maneuverability, high speed, and strong obstacle crossing ability, providing new insights for the development of practical high-performance amphibious robots.