Title: Design and structural analysis of a novel robot foot with 3-UPS/S parallel mechanism

Authors: Fuji Wang; Hongmei Zhang; Jianwei Ma; Youyang Zou

Addresses: School of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China

Abstract: The foot plays an important role in performance of the legged robot. However, the foot which have been designed has various disadvantages which does not meet a series of robot requirements such as heavy load, damping and flexibility. So, a foot with 3-UPS/Sparallel mechanism is proposed in this paper, and it has various functions to achieve its goals. And a detailed discussion about a correlation between foot requirements and structure, mobility characteristics and geometrical constraints is presented. Then, based on the Bekker pressure-sinkage theory, foot-terrain interaction model is built and the soil deformation can be calculated to judge foot stable possibility. Finally, the foot dimensions are carried out, and then corresponding results are calculated to check working state in different terrains. The above analyses illustrate that the foot with 3-UPS/S parallel mechanism has good features, which validates the feasibility of applying this mechanism as a foot.

Keywords: foot; parallel mechanism; stability analysis; structural analysis; legged robot.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMR.2019.101777

International Journal of Intelligent Machines and Robotics, 2019 Vol.1 No.3, pp.253 - 272

Received: 14 Oct 2018
Accepted: 14 Jan 2019
Published online: 26 Aug 2019 *

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