Hi! I’ve been enticed into the world of hobby robotics after seeing some hexapod videos on youtube (the Wii-remote controlled hexapod, the Ant-bot). My aspirations are greater than my budget for the time being, but to build a robot capable of carrying a person is something of a long-term goal.
I should preface my suggestion with some context, though. I’m a huge Masamune Shirow fan (Ghost in the Shell, New Dominion Tank Police, Appleseed), and would like to work on robotics projects inspired by his sci-fi - specifically, I would like to make something inspired by the tachikoma multipod tanks from Ghost in the Shell.
http://fredooo13.blogspot.es/img/tachikoma.gif
Note the “feet” are actually wheels. I haven’t been able to find wheeled feet, or anything like this prefab on lynxmotion (or any other robotic supplier I found on google). A “weakness” (so to speak) of the multiped design is how slow walking can be. Wheels could speed things up, and the legs could act as a smart shock-absorbing mechanism, giving the robot a lot more capabilities in rugged terrain.
Surely, adding wheeled feet to a 4- or 6-foot robot wouldn’t be much more difficult? Any thoughts on this pipe dream of mine?
Thanks in advance.
as much as your long term goal sound very interesting , may i suggest you start small. no human transport at this time. 
here is the first thing i thought of after reading this thread…
also you will find an interesting thread by linuxguy
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5342&start=15
he is building additions to his robot “rover” by adding legs, and soon to at wheels to the feet.
also this my be of interest!
This robot consists of four legs, four wheels and body. Each leg has three joints with two directions, and each wheel rotates in the CW and CCW directions. The modeling of animal motion is based on kinematics. The motion has two modes: legged mode and wheeled mode. At legged mode, this robot can walk as Komodo lizard. The motion at legged mode is controlled as animal-like as possible. At wheeled mode, this robot is controlled to drive as a car and softly moves with non-slip in flat plane.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4616&hilit=painrose
hope this is of some help.
Yes indeed! I already have a leg design capable of having either a foot with rotate and tilt OR a motor and wheel at the end. However, I expect to have to use 5980 or 5990 servos for the heavy lifting joints at a minimum to be able to pick up and manipulate a motor and wheel. I’m testing the legs on ASTRID and the four wheeled independently steered wheels on WALTER. Hopefully I will be able to merge the two at some point.
8-Dale
Aw that is fricking AWESOME! Very rad. I rather like the idea of using non-motorized wheels to skate along like that, but the appeal of using motorized wheels is very cool to.
I know that using commodity hardware, I’m still a long ways off from making a multiped capable of carrying a person. Even dabbling into industrial-grade stuff, that’s some intense engineering. Still, as the technology evolves, and we get new materials (like synthetic muscles to replace servos), the field remains wide open.
Still, I’ve seen simple ride-able robots before, too. The classic self-balancing teeter-bot can be upscaled into a two-wheeled powered skateboard. That’s probably where my first project will be.
That or the electric bike conversion. (I have many aspirations lol)
having a small budget doesn’t mean you can’t do something great, look up some popular science articles, popsci.com/diy/article/2010- … imbs-walls (case and point).
as for a human transport, well, the closet thing we have to that are army grade trucks, and even they are not fully autonomous.
