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arXiv · 2011.06227

Autonomous Obstacle Legipulation with a Hexapod Robot

Bethany Lu·Benjamin Tam·Navinda Kottege
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Abstract

Legged robots traversing in confined environments could find their only path is blocked by obstacles. In circumstances where the obstacles are movable, a multilegged robot can manipulate the obstacles using its legs to allow it to continue on its path. We present a method for a hexapod robot to autonomously generate manipulation trajectories for detected obstacles. Using a RGB-D sensor as input, the obstacle is extracted from the environment and filtered to provide key contact points for the manipulation algorithm to calculate a trajectory to move the obstacle out of the path. Experiments on a 30 degree of freedom hexapod robot show the effectiveness of the algorithm in manipulating a range of obstacles in a 3D environment using its front legs.

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Bethany Lu, Benjamin Tam, Navinda Kottege. 2020-11-12. Autonomous Obstacle Legipulation with a Hexapod Robot. https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.06227

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