Design and Motion Planning of a Metamorphic Flipping Robot.

With the advantages of high flexibility, strong adaptability, etc., the legged robot can help humans to complete numerous complicated tasks. In this paper, a kind of reconfigurable legged robot with a flexible waist was proposed. Compared with the common robots with a rigid trunk, the proposed robot can twist its waist flexibly. Through analysis, it is found that the flexible waist can improve the trunk workspace, foot endpoints' workspace and static stability margin of the robot, and further enhance the motion performance of the robot. Meanwhile, by imitating the creatures in nature, the motion gait planning of the robot was provided. Additionally, the proposed robot has excellent reconfigurable characteristics, and can flexibly transform among three forms to adapt to different working environments and accomplish different tasks. Further, after capsizing, the robot can complete the motion of turning over more easily. In this paper, the reconfiguration posture and the motion of turning over of the robot were planned in detail, and finally verified by ADAMS simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]