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Dynamics Modeling and Simulation of a Hexapod Robot with a Focus on Trajectory Prediction

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Abstract

Dynamics simulation is an important technique for hexapod robots. However, the realistic locomotion of a robot is comprehensive due to kinematics error, mechanism deformation, sinkage, slippage, and dragging of the feet on the ground. To investigate this phenomenon, this paper presents a kinematics and dynamics model of a hexapod robot to include this effect in dynamics simulation. The compliance of both the robot and terrain are taken into consideration. The total compliance matrix and compatibility equation are established with the consideration of the compliance of the legs, body, and terrain. The body of the robot is modeled to have a coupled compliance to consider the effect of all six legs. The theory of terramechanics is introduced to describe the constraint between the feet of the robot and terrain. The complete dynamics model of hexapodal walking is built on the foundation of the compliant kinematics model and foot-terrain interaction mechanics model. Numerical simulation and experiments are performed based on a bio-inspired hexapod robot. The simulation and experimental results indicate that the model can provide a reliable accuracy with only analytical and a priori data as inputs.

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Data Availability

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code Availability

The code used during the current study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2019YFB1309500, 2018YFB1306104), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51822502, 91948202), Science and Technology Major Project of Anhui Province (202003a05020015), and the “111 Project” (Grant No. B07018).

Funding

This study was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2019YFB1309500, 2018YFB1306104), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51822502, 91948202), Science and Technology Major Project of Anhui Province (202003a05020015), and the “111 Project” (Grant No. B07018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100089, China

    Ma Jin & Pinjia Zhang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China

    Liang Ding, Haibo Gao & Yang Su

Authors
  1. Ma Jin
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  2. Liang Ding
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  3. Haibo Gao
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  4. Yang Su
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  5. Pinjia Zhang
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Ma Jin, Liang Ding, Haibo Gao and Pinjia Zhang. Experiments were conducted by Ma Jin and Yang Su. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Ma Jin and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Pinjia Zhang.

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Jin, M., Ding, L., Gao, H. et al. Dynamics Modeling and Simulation of a Hexapod Robot with a Focus on Trajectory Prediction. J Intell Robot Syst 108, 8 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-023-01839-w

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