A Foot Resistive Force Model for Legged Locomotion on Muddy Terrains
This work addresses the challenge of legged robot locomotion on muddy terrains, offering a physically interpretable model and a practical foot design for improved mobility and efficiency.
The paper presents a resistive force model for legged robot foot-mud interactions, capturing visco-elasticity, thixotropy, and suction. The model enables a morphing foot design that improves locomotion mobility and energy efficiency in mud, with experimental validation.
Legged robots face significant challenges in moving and navigating on deformable and highly yielding terrain such as mud. We present a resistive force model for legged foot-mud interactions. The model captures rheological behaviors such as visco-elasticity, thixotropy of the mud suspension and retractive suction. One attractive property of this new model lies in its effective, uniform formulation to provide underlying physical interpretation and accurate resistive force predictions. We further take advantage of the resistive force model to design a new morphing robotic foot for effective and efficient legged locomotion. We conduct extensive experiments to validate the force model, and the results demonstrate that the morphing foot enhances not only the locomotion mobility but also energy-efficiency of walking in mud. The new resistive force model can be further used to develop data-driven simulation and locomotion control of legged robots on muddy terrains.