Development of Leg-Wheel Robot and Cooperational Motion of Legs and Wheels.

We have constructed a leg-wheel mobile robot called Chariot which has mechanically separated wheels and legs which allows it to utilize the advantages of the two mechanisms. Chariot can move at a speed of 20 km/h on a flat plane. It can also climb steps. In this paper, one of the characteristic motions of this leg-wheel robot, that is, pitching of the body when accelerated or decelerated by wheels is analyzed. It has been shown that pitching is reduced by trajectory optimization. The results of the experiments are also shown.