FlyingDog: design and implementation of a quadruped robot with flight capability

Purpose This paper aims to design a novel hybrid terrestrial-aerial robot, FlyingDog, including its modeling and implementation. By combining the complementary advantages of a quadrotor drone and a quadruped robot, FlyingDog demonstrates excellent maneuverability and high energy efficiency, showcasing great potential for applications in industrial inspection, field exploration, and search and rescue operations. Design/methodology/approach By integrating propellers and leg mechanisms, FlyingDog achieves hybrid motion, encompassing both aerial flight and ground movement. This paper first provides an overview of the robot’s structural design, emphasizing the minimization of interactions between the aerial and ground mechanisms while balancing the thrust-to-weight ratio and payload capacity. A distributed control framework is then proposed to achieve the hybrid motion, alongside the development of corresponding control strategies to ensure stability during various movements. Findings Experiments conducted in real-world conditions validated FlyingDog’s performance in terms of motion stability, energy efficiency, and obstacle-crossing ability. The results demonstrate that FlyingDog exhibits outstanding mobility by combining ground locomotion with aerial flight capabilities, allowing it to overcome challenging obstacles in purely ground-based mode. In ground mode, the robot achieved an energy efficiency of up to 93.5%. Originality/value The hybrid terrestrial-aerial robot presented in this paper features stable land and aerial mobility, a lightweight structure, high energy efficiency, and low manufacturing costs, making it a valuable innovation in the field of robotics.