English

A Pendulum-Driven Legless Rolling Jumping Robot

Robotics 2023-10-30 v2

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel rolling, jumping robot. The robot consists of a driven pendulum mounted to a wheel in a compact, lightweight, 3D printed design. We show that by driving the pendulum to shift the robot's weight distribution, the robot is able to obtain significant rolling speed, achieve jumps of up to 2.5 body lengths vertically, and clear horizontal distances of over 6 body lengths. The robot's dynamic model is derived and simulation results indicate that it is consistent with the rolling motion and jumping observed on the robot. The ability to both roll and jump effectively using a minimalistic design makes this robot unique and could inspire the use of similar mechanisms on robots intended for applications in which agile locomotion on unstructured terrain is necessary, such as disaster response or planetary exploration.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2304.11527,
  title  = {A Pendulum-Driven Legless Rolling Jumping Robot},
  author = {Jake Buzhardt and Prashanth Chivkula and Phanindra Tallapragada},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.11527},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

Final version of paper in IROS 2023. View the supplemental video at https://youtu.be/9hKQilCpeaw

R2 v1 2026-06-28T10:14:44.409Z