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Terrain Adaptive Crawler Vehicles "HELIOS-I, II, TAQT Carrier" BACK TO WHEELS & CRAWLR ROBOT

TAQT Carrier

(1987, HELIOS-I) (1989, HELIOS-II) (1991 TAQT Carrier). Endless rotation movement such as in wheels and crawlers, etc. is suitable to make a vehicle that can move at high speed with good efficiency with a few degrees of freedom, but these robots are limited in their adaptability to the terrain. For example, when climbing stairs, in a vehicle with a high center of gravity, the center of gravity tilts toward the back and is unstable. With the improvement of providing a slider as in Fig. 1(a), a powerful actuator is required to pull the upper carrier along the incline surface. The pendulum model in Fig. 1(b) has good balance, but the center of gravity still drops.

The HELIOS-I in Photo.1 is a device that gives supports based on the mechanism utilizing the large and small pulleys shown in Fig. 1(c). When the carrier is supported horizontally using posture sensor signals, the carrier moves forward, and the center of gravity of the vehicle as a whole is always maintained in the center.

HELIOS-II in Photo2 is a model which has the equilibrium crawlers of Fig. 2(b) (crawlers which are supported at the center and can normally be supported with zero torque). Compared to the conventional unit in Fig. 2(a), this has the advantage that support torque can be minimized. A new optical type torque sensor has been introduced into this, and it runs adaptively over irregular terrain by impedance control utilizing torque information and posture information. The total weight is 90 kg; and the length, width and height are 1m x 0.6m x 1m.

TAQT Carrier in Photo.3 is a device, which was made in cooperation with Takaoka Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd., for the purpose of transporting materials at construction sites, etc. Using a RC (remote center) mechanism by which the carrier slides on an arc shaped rail as shown in Fig. 2(d) heightened the rigidity of the posture control mechanism. The control computer and batteries are built in and it is under wireless control. The total weight is 310 kg (including the 70 kg battery pack); the load capacity is 100 kg; and the length, width and height are 1.3m x 0.86m x 0.97m

Fig.1 Stable support mechanisms on slopes

Fig.2 Cwawler support methods

(Introduction of the equilibruim

Photo.1 HELIOS-I

Photo.2 HELIOS-II

Photo.3 Outdoor operation of the TAQT Carrier
References:
  1. Shigeo Hirose, Sanehito Aoki, Jun Miyake; Terrain Adaptive Quadru-Track Vehicle HELIOS-II, Proc. 20th Int.Symp.on Industrial Robots, Tokyo, pp.235-243(1989)
  2. Shigeo Hirose, Sanehito Aoki, Jun Miyake; Terrain Adaptive Tracked Vehicle HELIOS-I, Proc. 4th Int.Conf.on Advanced Robotics, Columbus,Ohio,Springer-Verlag pp.676-687(1989)
  3. Shigeo Hirose, Sanehito Aoki, Jun Miyake; Design and Control of Quadru-Truck Crawler Vehicle HELIOS-II, Proc. 8th RoManSy Symp.,Cracow, Poland, pp.1-10(1990)
  4. Shigeo Hirose, Takeshi Sensu, Sanehito Aoki; the TAQT Carrier:A Pratical Terrain-Adaptive Quadru-Track Carrier Robot, Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int.Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Tokyo, pp.2068-2073(1992)
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