Power Consumption Characteristics Research on Mobile System of Electrically Driven Large-Load-Ratio Six-Legged Robot

Abstract The electrically driven large-load-ratio six-legged robot with engineering capability can be widely used in outdoor and planetary exploration. However, due to the particularity of its parallel structure, the effective utilization rate of energy is not high, which has become an important obstacle to its practical application. To research the power consumption characteristics of robot mobile system is beneficial to speed up it toward practicability. Based on the configuration and walking modes of robot, the mathematical model of the power consumption of mobile system is set up. In view of the tripod gait is often selected for the six-legged robots, the simplified power consumption model of mobile system under the tripod gait is established by means of reducing the dimension of the robot's statically indeterminate problem and constructing the equal force distribution. Then, the power consumption of robot mobile system is solved under different working conditions. The variable tendencies of the power consumption of robot mobile system are respectively obtained with changes in the rotational angles of hip joint and knee joint, body height, and span. The articulated rotational zones and the ranges of body height and span are determined under the lowest power consumption. According to the walking experiments of prototype, the variable tendencies of the average power consumption of robot mobile system are respectively acquired with changes in duty ratio, body height, and span. Then, the feasibility and correctness of theory analysis are verified in the power consumption of robot mobile system. The proposed analysis method in this paper can provide a reference on the lower power research of the large-load-ratio multi-legged robots.