Jumping robot: A pneumatic jumping locomotion across rough terrain

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a jumping mechanism using pneumatic actuators adopted in a traditional robotic vehicle’s frame. This is a skeleton for future development on this technology. This is a simple mechanism to overcome obstacles on its way in a robotic vehicle. As we know a traditional wheeled robotic vehicle can not over come an obstacle on ease as it doesn’t have an effective mechanism or it might take an other alternative long route to reach the target. This mechanism has an effective design to overcome obstacles comparing to the traditional robot vehicles. So this model has a higher mobility, flexibility and rapidity. This design has a new type of locomotion to it that is jumping along with wheeled movement which is not present in a traditional robot. This mechanism works from the real time information from the sensors. There are 4 double acting cylinders placed at equidistant from each other and mass distribution of the whole model has been equally divided and each cylinder has the same load. These 4 cylinders are pneumatically actuated as compressed air as source. When these cylinders are actuated there is rapid pressurizing which causes the jump. These cylinders are actuated when the relay receives signal from the sensor module that there is an obstacle ahead. As we know there are many kind of locomotion of robots are been developed these days like wheeled, tracked, crawling, walking and so on but all these robots have difficulty in overcoming obstacle on their way, if it is modified to overcome obstacle too their would be a complex design which in this model is not the case as it has a very simple design. This mechanism is designed to take over rough terrains and uneven and unknown terrains. As a overall outcome we were able to make the robot overcome the obstacles on its way in its unique way.