Motion Generation of Crawling-like Locomotion Robot Composed of Two Identical Units with Passive Wobbling Mass and Its Extension to Paper Feeding

This paper proposes a novel locomotion robot that can generate a crawling-like gait while controlling the vertical ground reaction force at the grounding point of each unit by using a passively vibrating wobbling mass. First, we outline the robot model and develop the mathematical equation of motion. Second, we numerically analyze the moving speed with respect to the phase difference between the passive wobbling masses and that of the target sinusoidal trajectory. Third, we discuss the mechanism of forward motion generation, and investigate the typical crawling-like motions. Furthermore, we give a basic consideration on the feasibility of a paper-feeding system using the robot as a driving source.