Sony has introduced a wheeled robot with an unusual design: it has two pairs of conventional wheels at the corners and two omnidirectional front and rear. This allows the robot to turn around on the spot and climb the ledges, almost without changing its angle of inclination. The company will test it as an observer on the construction of a building in Tokyo, according to a Sony press release.
Most of the mobile robots use a wheeled structure. It is easy to create and operate, makes the robot fast and stable. But at the same time, its patency is inferior to robots on their feet, and in addition, such robots can maintain a horizontal position, which may be important when carrying a payload. The useful properties of both designs can be combined if you combine the design of the walker with wheels or equip the wheeled robot with an independent suspension.
The Japanese company Sony has shown a new robot with a hybrid design. It has four main wheels at the corners. They are equipped with an independent suspension that pushes them further out of the body or vice versa retracts. This allows the robot to adjust the height before lifting, first increasing it on all four wheels, and then decreasing it on the front wheels to reduce the slope of the body.
In addition to the main wheels, the robot has two more: they are located in the middle of the front and back. Unlike corner wheels, they not only extend vertically, but also lean forward. Thanks to this, the robot can drive up to the elevation and first move the central wheel onto it, and then pull up the side wheels. The central wheels also differ in that they use an omnidirectional design, so the robot can turn around on the spot, relying on one of them.
The developers claim that the robot can travel with a load of up to 20 kilograms. On each side he has a depth chamber, thanks to which he can independently avoid collisions with obstacles, including mobile ones. Until the summer of 2022, the company will test a robot to monitor the state of construction of a building in Tokyo.
Recently, the Swiss company ANYbotics equipped a four-legged robot with wheels and taught it complex movements, including standing on two legs.
Grigory Kopiev