Design and Performance Analysis of Soft Crawling Robot Based on Photoelectric Sensor/STM32

Abstract

In this study, a control system based on STM32/photoelectric sensor is designed for soft crawling robot. The system consists of a front-end camera installed on soft robot, wireless routing, STM32 single-chip microcomputer and several photoelectric sensors. In this design, STM32 single-chip microcomputer is used as the main controller to send instructions to the four-limb drive steering gear through RS-485 module, and the feedback incentive mechanism is adopted to improve the accuracy and stability of the digital steering gear system. In order to better perceive the working environment, this design is also equipped with a variety of photoelectric level sensors, and photoelectric pressure sensors are installed to monitor the perceived pressure of the robot to make it move better on the ground. The photoelectric sensor is used to realize the soft crawling robot walking according to the planned route. The photoelectric tilt robot is used to change the walking direction during the moving process. Through the overall cooperation of the above components, the movement angle of limbs can be changed to make them crawl under narrow conditions. In the experiment, soft robot’s posture information is collected by various photoelectric sensors and displayed on the corresponding control interface, so that it can walk at the specified gait and leg swinging frequency. On the flat road, the swinging frequency of the robot first increases and then gradually stabilizes, and the movement efficiency is maintained at about 75% at the maximum movement speed.