A Biomimetic Approach to Robot Locomotion in Unstructured and Slippery Environments

While much attention has been given to bio-robotics in recent years, not much of this has been given to the challenging subject of locomotion in slippery conditions. This study begins to rectify this by proposing a biomimetic approach to generating the friction required to give sufficient propulsive force on a slippery substrate. We took inspiration from a successful biological solution-that of applying hair-like structures to the propulsive appendages, similar to the setae found in nereid polychaetes living in muddy habitats. We began by examining the morphology and themean locomotion parameters of one of the most common nereids: Nereis diversicolor. Following this study, we designed and fabricated a robotic system with appendages imitating the biological shape found in the worm. A flexible control system was developed to allow most of the locomotion parameters observed in the real worm to be applied to the robot. Experiments on three different natural substrates ranging from fine sand to gravel showed that, whereas a plate attached to the appendage generated most thrust on a small particle substrate, a bundle of artificial setae attached to the appendage generated most thrust on a large particle substrate. On all types of substrate tested, an appendage without any attachment did significantly worse than one with. This suggests that hair-like structures can be advantageous.

作 者： Giovanni La Spina Thomas Hesselberg John Williams Julian F V Vincent   作者單位： Giovanni La Spina(Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna , Polo Sant'Anna Valdera , CRIM Lab, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio, 34, 56025 - Pontedera (Pisa), Italy)

Thomas Hesselberg,John Williams,Julian F V Vincent(Centre for Biomimetic and Natural Technologies, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK) 

刊 名： 仿生工程學報（英文版）  SCI 英文刊名： JOURNAL OF BIONICS ENGINEERING  年，卷(期)： 2005 2(1)  分類號： Q81  關鍵詞： bio-robotics   biomimetics   polychaeta   thrust generation   friction  

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