Influence of Gait, Gradient & Terrain on the Performance of Six-Legged Robot

Solutions to several of our problems have been derived by biological inspiration. Similarly, such inspiration has spawned a solution to both mechanical as well as control schemes in the efforts to develop agile legged machines like the one presented here-HEXAPOD. The hexapod was designed & developed with each leg having two degrees of freedom. In total the hexapod has 12 Degrees of Freedom. Further it was integrated with sensors such as Camera, IMU, Current Sensor. The robot was controlled by two Arduino Mega embedded boards. The robot was powered by on board batteries for outdoor testing & SMPS in indoor testing. The feedbacks obtained from the robot were used to derive an optimized solution for its motion under different terrains (Tiles, Sand and Concrete), gaits (Tripod, Metachronal, Ripple) and different gradient (0°, 5°, 10°). Experiments were designed using Taguchi Experimental Technique. The Obtained results were analyzed using main effects of means & analysis of variance (ANOVA). The main effects of various factors & their levels on IMU Yaw, Pitch, Roll, Velocity were studied. Finally, we have presented the optimized combination of factors & their levels for improved stability & reliability of the hexapod robot.