SpaceBok: A Dynamic Legged Robot for Space Exploration
Philip Arm, Radek Zenkl, Patrick Barton, Lars Beglinger, Alex Dietsche, Luca Ferrazzini, Elias Hampp, Jan Hinder
Abstract
This paper introduces SpaceBok, a quadrupedal robot created to investigate dynamic legged locomotion for the exploration of low-gravity celestial bodies. With a hip height of 500 mm and a mass of 20 kg, its dimensions are comparable to a medium-sized dog. The robot's leg configuration is based on an optimized parallel motion mechanism that allows the integration of parallel elastic elements to store and release energy for powerful jumping maneuvers. High-torque brushless motors in combination with customized single-stage planetary gear transmissions enable force control at the foot contact points based on motor currents. We present successful walking, trotting, and pronking experiments. Thereby, Spacebok achieved maximal jump heights in single jump experiments of up to 1.05 m (more than twice the hip height) and a walking velocity of 1m/s. Moreover, simulation results for low gravity on the moon suggest that our robot can move with up to 1.1m/s at an approximate cost of transport of 1 in moon gravity when using the pronking gait.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2019_spacebokadynamic,
title = {SpaceBok: A Dynamic Legged Robot for Space Exploration},
author = {Philip Arm and Radek Zenkl and Patrick Barton and Lars Beglinger and Alex Dietsche and Luca Ferrazzini and Elias Hampp and Jan Hinder and Camille Huber and David Schaufelberger and Felix Schmitt and Benjamin Sun and Boris Stolz and Hendrik Kolvenbach and Marco Hutter},
booktitle = {ICRA 2019},
year = {2019}
}