I have seen some great quadruped robots on this site in the past few years and always wanted to build one myself. It became one of the most time-consuming projects I have ever done, including not only a robot, but also a simulator and Android app.
Electronics:
The robot is using twelve HK-15138 Hobbking servos. They are controlled by an Arduino MEGA and powered by a 6.6V 3000mAh LiFePo. There is a bluetooth module for communications and an ultrasonic sensor with a small servo as a sonar.
Mechanics:
The frame mostly consists of laser cut acrylic plates connected by metal rods. Joints are made of small ball bearings and nuts. The feet are camera tripod legs with additional rubber for grip. The "eyes" can rotate to scan the environment. Design was done in Sketchup and is inspired by Boston Dynamics' Alphadog.
Programming:
With the current code, the robot can perform body translation/rotation, send and receive bluetooth commands and walk using a basic sine gait. I am already working on more complex gaits. To make this easier I wrote a small simulator using Processing. This way it is possible to copy and paste Arduino code between the robot and the simulator. I also made an Android app to control the robot via bluetooth.
If you are interested you can check out my blog post for more information:
Looks very nice. I can see you have lots of room for improving the gaits, it’s lots of fun to experiment with those!
For instance, the order in which you move the legs has large impact on the stability, you can experiment with different orders (there are really only 4 important variations) to find the best one (hint: it’s one of the figure-eight ones). Maybe then you could have a longer stride.
Thank U for this! This project is really incredible.I am big fan of Boston Dynamics and today I’ve founded your robot.I want to build it!
you give a lot of info but can give code for arduino?i’d like to build and to test then change arduino for my own platform.
I read your blog and I read your blog and mechanics is not problem for me.But I’m new in programming motion robots and i need any code to test robot and to underdstand algorithm.Can you give code for walk and for swing like in videos?
I think that robot can walk faster and may be run - is it real?Is construction allow this?
And it can really work in rough terrain, isn’t it?
Thanks a lot for answer.I use google for two days but have not found your contacts.
I read your blog and I read your blog and mechanics is not problem for me.But I’m new in programming motion robots and i need any code to test robot and to underdstand algorithm.Can you give code for walk and for swing like in videos? I think that robot can walk faster and may be run - is it real?Is construction allow this? And in video it’s not explained but can robot turn and climb?or only forward slow walking?
And it can really work in rough terrain, isn’t it? Thanks a lot for answer.I use google for two days but have not found your contacts.