Hope College Engineering Department
Research Experiences for Undergraduates
Summer 2008
Project Summary

 

Project Title:  Implementation and Control of a Reconfigurable 4-Tetrahedral Robot
Student Name: Peter Doorn
Student's Home Institution: Hope College
Research Advisor: Dr. Miguel Abrahantes
Source of Support: This material is based upon work supported by the Hope College Dean for the Natural and Applied Sciences Office, Michigan Space Grant Consortium, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center, and Hope College Engineering Department.

In an effort to improve upon current NASA rover technologies, the Goddard Space Flight Center commissioned a research and development team in 2000 to study tetrahedral robotics. A tetrahedral robot is composed of tetrahedral cells made up of extendable and contractible struts. The robot is able to navigate difficult terrain inaccessible to current rovers through the extension and contraction of these struts. This year, our goal was to improve upon the previous prototype 4-Tetrahedral robot’s interface and hardware. This involved the implementation of new, off-the-market microprocessors and a proportional, integral, and derivative control (PID) for the struts. It also consisted of the refinement of the previous structure using custom nodes, consolidated wiring, and wireless computer-to-robot communication. This was done in an effort to test different controls and custom walking gaits for a 4-Tetrahedral robot, the purpose of which is to advance tetrahedral robotics research.


 

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