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.

Maximizing the Throwing Distance of Robotic Manipulators: An Optimization Approach

Abstract

Manipulators are increasingly being called upon to perform a wide range of tasks. This paper explores the maximal distance throwing task for robotic manipulators and shows that this characteristic can be incorporated in the kinematic design process. Indeed, knowing the maximum distance that a manipulator can throw objects is useful in determining the viability of certain throwing tasks it might be called upon to execute. This paper studies three optimization problems: optimizing the release state to maximize the throwing distance, optimizing the kinematic trajectory subject to position, velocity, acceleration, and jerk constraints, and finally optimizing the kinematic design of manipulators to maximize the workspace as well as the throwing distance. Three manipulator architectures are used as case studies for these optimizations: a planar RR, a spatial RRR, and a wrist-partitioned 6R manipulator.

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