Study on Guinea Fowl Mimicking Jumping Robot with Momentum Wheel Mechanism

Jumping robots with a balance control mechanism using an inertial tail have been actively studied to overcome various obstacles. However, there have been no studies to increase the stability of the jumping robot's legs, which move rapidly during jumping, and to reduce the volume of the tail mechanism. In this paper, we focus on a prototype of guinea fowl jumping robot to improve the stability during the rapid jumping motion, and we introduce a momentum wheel mechanism to reduce the occupied volume of the tail mechanism. In addition, we suggest a basic study to make continuous jumping motion by using the momentum wheel mechanism to change the jumping angle, jumping height, and jumping distance. A theoretical analysis, simulation, prototype fabrication, and experiment of a guinea fowl jumping robot with a 1-axis momentum wheel mechanism were carried out. Besides, we confirmed that the passive hallux structure contributed to the jumping stability, and we verified that the prototype model could properly land on the ground by controlling the posture after vertical jumping using the momentum wheel mechanism.