A Symmetric Three Degree of Freedom Tensegrity Mechanism with Dual Operation Modes for Robot Actuation

Tensegrity robots that use bio-inspired structures have many superior properties over conventional with regard to strength, weight, compliance and robustness, which are indispensable planetary exploration harsh environment applications. Existing research has presented various tensegrity abundant capabilities in broad scenarios but mostly not focused on articulation manipulability. In this paper, we propose a novel mechanism for robot actuation greatly improves the agility efficiency compared existing ones. The design integrates two separate substructures inspired by shoulder hip joints of human body features similar form hexapod platform. It mitigates detrimental antagonistic forces structural network optimising controllability efficiency. We validated both prototype Chrono Engine simulation represents first physically accurate wheeled robot. can reach up approximately 58.9?, 59.4? 47.1? pitch, yaw roll motion, respectively. demonstrates good as an actuated linkage while preserving desirable structures. would potentially inspire more possibilities agile implementations enable future enhanced compliance, robustness without tradeoff.