Latest Papers

ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics

  • A Small-Scale Integrated Jumping-Crawling Robot: Design, Modeling, and Demonstration
    on June 16, 2025 at 12:00 am

    AbstractThe small jumping-crawling robot improves its obstacle-crossing ability by selecting appropriate locomotion methods. However, current research on jumping-crawling robots remains focused on enhancing specific aspects of performance, and several issues still exist, including nonadjustable gaits, poor stability, nonadjustable jumping posture, and poor motion continuity. This article presents a small jumping-crawling robot with decoupled jumping and crawling mechanisms, offline adjustable gaits, autonomous self-righting, autonomous steering, and certain slope-climbing abilities. The crawling mechanism adopts a partially adjustable Klann six-bar linkage, which can generate four stride lengths and three gaits. The jumping mechanism is designed as a six-bar linkage with passive compliance, and an active clutch allows energy storage and release in any state. The autonomous self-righting mechanism enables the robot to self-right after tipping over, meanwhile providing support, steering, and posture adjustment functions. Prototype experiments show that the designed robot demonstrates good motion stability and can climb a 45 deg slope without tipping over. The robot shows excellent steering performance, with a single action taking 5 s and achieving a steering angle of 11.5 deg. It also exhibits good motion continuity, with an average recovery time of 12 s to return to crawling mode after a jump. Crawling experiments on rough terrain demonstrate the feasibility of applying the designed robot in real-world scenarios.

Connectivity Calculation-Based Automatic Synthesis of Planar Multi-Loop Mechanisms

Abstract

The creative design of kinematic structures with excellent performance remains an open issue in the quest for developing novel multi-loop mechanisms. This study presents an automatic method to synthesize all nonisomorphic planar multi-loop mechanisms satisfying the required connectivity between the base and the end-effector. First, based on the connectivity matrix calculation, all multi-loop mechanisms are generated from synthesized kinematic chains. Second, the concepts of perimeter, canonical, and characteristic graphs of multi-color topological graphs are addressed to acquire the simplified characteristic hybrid code (SCHC) in order to eliminate isomorphic multi-loop mechanisms. Then, an automatic method to synthesize all nonisomorphic planar multi-loop mechanisms with the required connectivity between the base and the end-effector is provided. Finally, a practical application of this synthesis method is illustrated by taking the mechanical arm of a face-shovel hydraulic excavator as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.
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