Development of hexapod tracked mobile robot and hybrid motions for transportation

The authors have devised a novel type of tracked mobile robot, hexapod tracked mobile robot, which is equipped with six legs attached to its body. This type of robot is able to not only move over rough terrain, but also perform a variety of handling tasks by using its legs as manipulator arms. A prototype of the hexapod tracked mobile robot was developed in this study. This paper describes an object transportation task with a traversing motion over a wide gap. Considering a sequence of the task, two motions are specifically described. One is the motion of picking up an object with hand-over between legs. Another is the motion of traversing a wide gap by a leg-tracks hybrid motion with object-carrying. Several simulations and experiments with the developed robot demonstrated its ability to achieve hybrid locomotion and tasks.