A Tensegrity Hybrid Mobile Robot with Mechanical Impact Resistance

In this work, we present a hybrid mobile robot with legged and wheeled locomotion modes and tensegrity components. Our work uniquely integrates classical robot structures with tensegrities to create a lightweight robot capable of resisting fall impacts and moving efficiently. After describing the mechanical and embedded system implementation of the robot in detail, we present a set of experiments to demonstrate the efficacy of our robot. Specifically, we dropped the robot from different heights and conducted cost of transport measurements for wheeled and legged modes at different speeds. The findings demonstrate that the use of tensegrity structures could be beneficial in terms of impact resistance and in different challenging applications, while double-type locomotion system could serve for more efficient locomotion and power consumption.