Structural design and simulation of crossing obstacle of a robot with wheel-legs

In order to improve the ground mobile robot's ground adaptability and obstacle crossing capability, a wheel-legs structure was designed in the mobile robot by imitating the configuration of insects' legs. This wheel-legs structure was improved. On this basis the mechanical structure and control systems of the wheel-leg robots were designed. Aiming at the obstacle crossing performance in unstructured environment, we had some related analysis and used the ADAMS (Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems) to simulate the robot' movement. Compared with wheel-leg structure, we simulated the obstacle crossing performance of the leg structure robot. The simulations showed that the wheel-leg structure robot' capacity of crossing obstacle is better than the leg structure one. The robot with wheel-leg structure can climb over a certain weight and this verified that this structure is feasible and is capacity of crossing obstacle. The torque and power of the drive motor were simulated and verified to ensure that the motor can meet the performance requirements. The prototype robot' movement and the experiment of crossing obstacle verified that the design simulation and analysis of the wheel-leg robot are correct.