Design and Testing of an Autonomous Highly Mobile Robot in a Beach Environment

The capability of autonomous platforms to function on beaches is critical for a wide range of military and civilian operations. Of particular importance is the ability to autonomously navigate through rocky terrain, hard-packed moist sand, and loose dry sand typically found in these environments. The study of animal locomotion mechanisms provides specific movement principles that can be applied to address these demands. In this work, we report the design, fabrication, control system development, and field-testing of a biologically inspired autonomous robot for deployment and operation in a surf-zone environment. The robot successfully fuses a range of insect-inspired passive mechanisms with active autonomous control architectures to seamlessly adapt to and traverse through a range of challenging substrates. Field testing establishes the performance of the robot to navigate semi-rugged terrain in the surf-zone environment including: soft to hard packed sand, mild to medium inclines, and rocky terrain. Platform autonomy is shown to be effective for navigation and communication. The fusion of passive mechanisms and active control algorithms enables the robot with the mobility of a legged vehicle with a control system as simple as that of a wheeled robot.