Development of Jumping & Rolling Inspector to Improve the Debris-traverse Ability

Abstract

The design and motion experiments of the newly constructed jumping & rolling inspector Leg-in-rotor-II are discussed. The features of Leg-in-rotor-II are as follows: (i) The driving method of 3-D jumping & rolling by the reduced degrees of freedom on the separated drive. (ii) The introduction of the passively stored leg. (iii) The introduction of the wheel with the light anisotropy elasticity of the high changing ratio. (iv) The pneumatic jumping control method and its energy saving. (v) The sensing method to estimate the desired jumping start point. (vi) The structure of the sideway tumble prevention and the shock buffer. Finally, the motion experiments of Leg-in-rotor-II to roll, jump and land on debris are shown and the validity of the introduced design methods is verified.