Structural Design of a New Deformed Wheel-Legged Robot

In view of the deficiencies of wheeled mobile robot's obstacle-crossing performance and legged mobile robot's movement performance, a new deformable wheel-legged robot is proposed in this study. The robot can switch freely between two motion modes: wheel mode and wheel-leg mode. The deformable wheel adopts the transmission principle of planar helical vice to design the deformable wheel of wheel-leg robot, and two solutions are designed for comparison and analysis. The best transmission scheme is selected by calculating the transmission angle and pressure angle of the linkage mechanism during the deformation process. The maximum overrun height and body length in wheel-leg mode are calculated according to the geometric relationship. Finally the simulation experimental analysis was carried out by dynamics simulation software test. The research results show that the new deformed wheel has a spread ratio of 1.42 and can cross the obstacle with a height of 0.22m, which has a strong ability to cross the obstacle.