Throwable Walking Robot has a Spherical Shell
Posted on October 27, 2015
Researchers from the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan have developed a throwable robot with a spherical shell. The robot has four legs that can emerge from the shell enabling it to walk after landing or rolling. The robot is named QRoSS-II. This is the second generation of the robot.
QRoSS-II can use its shell to absorbing external forces and improvement mobile performance by using its round shape. The transformable design enables the robot to change from ball mode to walking mode. The researchers cited examples of transformable robot designs with ball shapes from science fiction in an earlier report. Some examples include Haro in Gundam and the Destroyer droid (droideka) from Star Wars.
The spherical outer shell of QRoSS-II is a cage which comprises of twenty wires with a center pole through the absorbers. These wires are super elasticity rods which are made of titanium alloys and a shape memory alloy. The absorbers are made of a polyurethane foam and are arranged between the wire hub and the center pole.
The legs of QRoSS-II have double-joint mechanisms on the third joints (a knee joint). You can find out more about the mechanical design of the robot here in the research report. IEEE reports that the robot has a walking speed of 0.1 m/s and a faster rolling speed of 0.6 m/s. The robotic research project was presented at IROS 2015 in Hamburg, Germany. Take a look: