This is my work-in-progress, which originally started with a BRAT kit and desire to do smooth servo motions. Differences from BRAT chassis:
] Additional 2 DOF so that legs can rotate around the vertical axis. I’m hoping this will allow more natural and flexible walking gaits./:m]
] Uses ASB-503B from SES catalog to connect the legs instead of aluminum channel. This widens the stance just a little./:m]
] Custom mounting for battery, microcontroller, etc. This is simple design cut out of Lexan, but I like how it worked out. It keeps the center-of-gravity relatively low without restricting any movements./:m]
] Instead of SSC32, uses a custom propellor based micro board. This was/is the main point of this particular project. So far, I have implemented a protocol over Bluetooth allowing for dynamic group servo moves that are sent by a PC. It includes servo acceleration/deacceleration parameters./:m]
For last few months I’ve been working on a GUI application to handle the high level control …and that is taking much longer than I"d like. It’s not very far along, so I actually haven’t seen this design walking…yet. (Partly because I decided to learn a new gui toolkit in the process.)
Front View (Alibre)
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Back View (Alibre)
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Rendering (Hypershot)
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Red shows the custom piece cut out of lexan (Hypershot)
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Photo - Shows benefit of the extra DOFs
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Photo - Shows how components are mounted
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Size comparison w/ SSC-32
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Early Mockup of Controller GUI
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Lastly, I generated a 3D Adobe PDF of the Model. Anyone with a recent version of Adobe Reader should be able to rotate and interact with the 3D model. Just cool maybe if you’ve never used Reader to do that before.
