title: Design of a high-mobility multi-terrain robot based on eccentric paddle mechanism.
abstract: Gaining high mobility on versatile terrains is a crucial target for designing a mobile robot toward tasks such as search and rescue, scientific exploration, and environment monitoring. Inspired by dextrous limb motion of animals, a novel form of locomotion has been established in our previous study, by proposing an eccentric paddle mechanism (ePaddle) for integrating paddling motion into a traditional wheeled mechanism. In this paper, prototypes of an ePaddle mechanism and an ePaddle-based quadruped robot are presented. Several locomotion modes, including wheeled rolling, legged crawling, legged race-walking, rotational paddling, oscillating paddling, and paddle-aided rolling, are experimentally verified on testbeds with fabricated prototypes. Experimental results confirm that paddle's motion is useful in all the locomotion modes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Robotics, Ristumeikan University, 1-1-1 Noji Higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577 Japan.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Robotics, Ristumeikan University, 1-1-1 Noji Higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577 Japan ; Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Systems Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ookayama, Megoru-ku, Tokyo, 152-8552 Japan.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Robotics, Ristumeikan University, 1-1-1 Noji Higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577 Japan.
authors.forename: Shugen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, 149 Yanchang Road, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Huayan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pu
keywords: Eccentric paddle mechanism; Multi-terrain locomotion; ePaddle