Gait and Gait Transition for a Robot with Two Actuated Spoke Wheels

This paper presents work on the gait and gait transition analysis for a novel mobile robot that uses two actuated spoke wheels. Gait transitions, known as acyclic feed forward patterns, allow the robot to switch from one type of gait to another during walking and turning. The mobile robot IMPASS (Intelligent Mobility Platform with Active Spoke System) uses a unique mobility concept for locomotion, thus gait transition plays an important role in generating gait patterns to walk and turn. The primary focus of this paper is how to perform gait transition between gaits in walking direction. First, the basic gait patterns for steering and straight line walking are presented. More specifically, the critical gait parameterizations and the possible foot positions in different gait patterns to produce capable steering locomotion over terrain are presented. Since IMPASS is expected to utilize its metamorphic configurations to carry out gait transitions, the extending forward and inverse analyses are also presented based on previous work about topology classification and mobility analysis for IMPASS. Then the gait transition analysis and simulation of typical patterns are performed. The results from this work lay the foundation for the future research on trajectory and path planning for IMPASS.