Design and experiment of multi-locomotion tensegrity mobile robot

Multi-locomotion tensegrity mobile robots have garnered significant attention in recent research due to their strong terrain adaptability and high stiffness-to-mass ratio. However, the lack of effective design method limits the application range of these robots. In this article, a mechanism design method for the multi-locomotion tensegrity mobile robot is proposed. Firstly, based on the characteristics of worms, mechanism design objectives for the tensegrity robot are put forward from three perspectives, namely bionics, motion law and tensegrity characteristics. Accordingly, the mechanism design process is conducted from two sections in terms of the design of multi-locomotion tensegrity units and the splicing of the identical units. In the mechanism design for the tensegrity units, the rod distribution is firstly determined on compliance with the proposed design objectives, followed by the determination of cable distribution with force-balance analysis method. On this basis, two identical multi-locomotion tensegrity units are axially spliced, and a series of multi-locomotion tensegrity robotic mechanisms can be acquired naturally. Finally, examples are provided, and simulations and experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism design method.