MOBILE 4 LEGGED ROBOT FOR UNMANNED MATERIAL HANDLING IN AN INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT.

Robots under the head 'mobile' have been many. But they clearly fall under two classifications - those with wheels and those with legs. The former can travel at a good speed but is useless when it comes to obstacle clearance and climbing steps, whereas the latter is very slow on level ground. For long the need for a robot with proficiency in both the above was felt. This paper deals with the design features of one which has wheels on limbs and has the capacity to comfortably clear obstacles. Stress is made on the innovative pantograph model, the ankle and the roller skates used. Description of the straight line motion control, obstacle clearance, steps climbing and material transfer is also made. It is based on a 4-legged skating robot currently being developed at the Precision Engineering and Instrumentation Laboratory, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The modifications made on the machine tool and in the factory environment is also presented.