Alberto Elfes1, Ryan Steindl1, Fletcher Talbot1, Farid Kendoul1, Pavan Sikka1, Tom Lowe1, Marko Bjelonic2, Navinda Kottege1, Ross Dungavell1, Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay1, Marcus Hoerger3, Benjamin Tam1, David Rytz1
11:30 - 11:35 | Tue 30 May | Room 4811/4812 | TUB9.1
To address the goal of locomotion in very complex and difficult terrains, the authors are developing a new class of Ultralight Legged Robots. This paper presents the Multilegged Autonomous eXplorer (MAX), an ultralight, six-legged robot for traversal and exploration of challenging indoor and outdoor environments. The design of MAX emphasizes a low mass/size ratio, high locomotion efficiency, and high payload capability compared to total system mass. MAX is 2.25 m tall when in a fully erect stance and has a mass of approximately 60 kg, which makes it 5 to 20 times lighter than robots of comparable size. MAX is a research vehicle to explore modelling and control of Ultralight Legged Robots subject to flexing, oscillations and swaying; algorithms for gait planning and motion planning under uncertainty; and navigation planning for traversal of complex 3D terrains. This paper presents the design of MAX, provides an overview of the control system developed, summarizes results from indoor and outdoor tests, discusses system performance and outlines the challenges to be addressed next.