Wheely: An Accessible Platform for Experimenting with Wheeled-Legged Quadrupedal Robots

Wheely is a small and inexpensive wheeled-legged quadruped robot made to be an accessible method of experimenting with wheeled-legged robots. The current robotics environment lacks economic wheeled-legged quadrupedal robots for low stakes experimentation and use. The robot uses low-cost and easy to acquire servo motors for a simple, but reliable build. With total costs within $600 dollars, Wheely is around 0.2 m tall and weighs roughly 3 kg. Wheely's simplistic and small-scale nature allows it to be deployed by a single operator and is modification friendly. Wheely is the combination of the best of two worlds, wheeled and legged locomotion, allowing efficient travel on both smooth and rugged terrain. Experiments on robot were conducted in a simulated environment using Pybullet. Wheely is capable of autonomously surmounting stairs 0.05 m tall, 25% of its normal body height, using open loop gaits generated using Bezier curves. On flat surfaces, Wheely can reach speeds of up to 0.09 m/s using wheeled and 0.04 m/s using legged locomotion. Wheely's relatively low-cost and accessible nature will allow for the proliferation of wheeled-legged quadruped technologies and freedom of experimentation.