AME - Design and Manufacturing of a Multi-Robot Deployment

A kit has been developed in our lab for a hexapedal crawling robot.  Previous phases of the project focused on design for assembly, gait control, and foot design.  As a result of these efforts, the kit can be assembled in less than 30 minutes, the robot smoothly enforces an alternating tripod gait between turns, and the feet act upon the ground without slip.  The project imagines deploying dozens of robots at a time, but each kit currently requires 10+ hours of 3D printer time to fabricate.  The next phase of the project is to reimagine manufacturing to greatly reduce the time and effort needed to make one kit.  Polyurethane molding among other options will be considered.  The successful project will be marked by a large scale deployment exercise of multiple robots.  Project activities will also include working with and modifying the robot’s C code base.  Side adventures involving other aspects of the robot’s design are likely.