Modeling and Gait Design for a Tetrahedron Walker Robot

Prof. Miguel Abrahantes

Aaron Silver and Luke Wendt

Hope College

This presentation will cover the use of a simulated robot to model tetrahedron walker robots (TETs) being developed at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. These robots are based on tetrahedron as a 'building block', acting singly, or connected in a continuous network. They are walker robots which means that they have locomotion without wheels. A single reconfigurable tetrahedral robot can tumble over irregular terrain. Continuous networks have locomotion with a high degree of freedom resembling amoeboid movement. One of the most important elements in the study of walker robots is the design of robust and fast walking gait patterns. We will present the use of the model to obtain choreographic designed
gaits.