Locomotion Capabilities of a Modular Robot with Eight Pitch-Yaw-Connecting Modules

Juan Gonzalez-Gomez, Eduardo Boemo
{Juan.gonzalez,Eduardo.Boemo}@uam.es
Computer Engineering School,
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain


Houxiang Zhang, Jianwei Zhang
{hzhang,zhang}@informatik.uni-hamburg.de
TAMS, Department of Informatics, University of Hamburg, Germany

Abstract:

In this paper, a general classification of the modular robots is proposed, based on their
topology and the type of connection between the modules. The locomotion capabilities of the
sub-group of pitch-yaw connecting robots are analyzed. Five different gaits have been
implemented and tested on a real robot composed of eight modules. One of them, rotating,
has not been previously achieved. All gaits are implemented using a simple and elegant
central pattern generator (CPG) approach that simplify the algorithms of the controlling
system.