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Locomotion Analysis of Hexapod Robot

Chapter · March 2010

DOI: 10.5772/8822 · Source: InTech

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 Z.-Y. Wang, X.-L. Ding and A. Rovetta Analysis of typical
locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot.
Robotica: page 1 of 15. © Cambridge University Press 2010 Robotica, volume 28, issue 06, pp. 893-907.
doi:10.1017/S0263574709990725

Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot

Z.-Y. Wang∗§,¶, X.-L. Ding§ and A. Rovetta¶
§Robotics Research Institute, Beijing University of Astronautics and Aeronautics, Beijing 100083, China
¶Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Lamasa 34, Milan 20156, Italy
(Received in Final Form: November 11, 2009)

SUMMARY Gait is a key element for multilegged robots and it

In recent years hexagonal hexapod robots gained the interest is solely dependent on the design of bodies and legs.
of international research community. The aim of this paper Hexapod gaits have been widely investigated as a function
is twofold. First, after summarizing all known gaits of of shape and characteristics of the robot structure. In 1985,
such robots, we introduce some improvements both for Kaneko et al.11 addressed the gait of a rectangular hexapod
normal conditions and for fault tolerance. Then we show the with decoupled freedoms where the propelling motion was
advantages of hexagonal hexapod robots over rectangular generated by one degree of freedom (DOF). In 1988, Lee
ones by comparing different gaits from theoretical and et al.12 realized an omnidirectional walking control system
experimental points of view. Stability, fault tolerance, turning for a rectangular hexapod robot with adaptive suspension.
ability, and terrain adaptability are analyzed. For reaching A circular gait was studied for a layered hexapod robot
these aims we also introduce a robot kinematics that (called Ambler) at the Carnegie Mellon University10,13–14
considers at the same time supporting and transferring legs. with rotating legs connected to the same vertical axis at six
The trajectories of feet are described as well. Finally, single different heights. Hirose et al.15–16 and Gurocak17 developed
leg stride selection is studied for side wave and for kick-off other two hexapods whose bodies were consisting of two
gaits to optimize walking ability and energy management. different layers, each connected to three legs. The relative
The theoretical results presented herein have been motion of the layers realized the omnidirectional robot gait
validated with experiments conducted on a prototype of the in a simple way, but limiting the walking capability under leg
Novel Robotics System for Planetary Exploration (Rovetta faults. Lees18 studied the gait of a special robot whose body
et al., “New Robot Concepts for Mars Soil Exploration: was composed of three parts connected by revolute joints. Its
Mechanics and Functionality,” ASTRA 2004, Eighth ESA flexible gait allowed it to overcome complex terrains, but its
Workshop on Advanced Space Technologies for Robotics and configuration was quite complicate for control system design
Automatian, Nordwijk, The Netherlands Nov. 2–4, 2004) R Hex, introduced by Saranli et al.,19 is another hexapod
(NOROS), developed by Politecnico di Milano and Beijing robot with half-circle legs with a simple alternate tripod gait.
University of Astronautics and Aeronautics, and the results Most popular hexapods can be grouped into two categories,
are summarized in this paper. rectangular, and hexagonal ones. Rectangular hexapods have
a rectangular body with two groups of three legs distributed
KEYWORDS: Hexapod robot; Locomotion, Symmetric; symmetrically on the two sides. Hexagonal hexapods have
Trajectory; Agility. a round or hexagonal body with evenly distributed legs. A
typical leg has three DOFs.
The gait of rectangular six-legged robots has motivated
1. Introduction a number of theoretical researches and experiments which
Multilegged robots display significant advantages with nowadays reached to some extent a state of maturity. Lee
respect to wheeled ones for walking over rough terrain et al.20 showed for rectangular hexapods the longitudinal
because they do not need continuous contact with the ground. stability margin, which is defined as the shortest distance
In nature, most arthropods have six legs to easily maintain from the vertical projection of center of gravity to the
static stability, and it has been observed that a larger number boundaries of the support pattern in the horizontal plane, of
of legs does not increase walking speed.2 Moreover, hexapod straight-line motion and crab walking. Song et al.21 defined
robots show robustness in case of leg faults.3–10 For these the duty factor β as the fraction of cycle time in which a
reasons, hexapod robots have attracted considerable attention leg is in the supporting phase and they proved that the wave
in recent decades. The most studied problem for multilegged gait is optimally stable among all periodic and regular gaits
robots concerns how to determine the best sequence for lifting for rectangular hexapods when 3/4 ≤ β < 1. Both the tripod
off and placing the feet (gait planning) while many results gait and the problem of turning around a fixed point on an
have been obtained on this topic, the field is still open to even terrain have been widely investigated and tested for a
research. general rectangular hexapod with three DOF legs.22,23 The so
called 4+2 quadruped gaits24 have been demonstrated being
able to tolerate faults.6 A series of fault-tolerant gaits for
* Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] hexapods were analyzed by Yang et al.3−7 Their aim was
2 Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot

to maintain the stability in case a fault event prevented a

leg from supporting the robot. Kugushev and Jaroshevskij25
proposed a terrain adaptive free gait that was nonperiodic.
McGhee et al.26 and other researchers27,28 went on studying
free gaits of rectangular hexapod robots.
At the same time, the hexagonal hexapod robots were
studied with inspiration from the insect family, demonstrate
better performances for some aspects than rectangular robots.
Kamikawa et al.29 confirmed the ability to walk up and down
a slope with the tripod gait by building a virtual smooth
surface that approximates the exact ground. Yoneda et al.30
enhanced the results of ref. [21], developing a time-varying
wave gait for hexagonal robots, in which velocity, duty factor,
and crab angle are changed according to terrain conditions.
Preumon et al.2 proved that hexagonal hexapods can easily
steer in all directions and that they have longer stability
margin, but he did not give a detailed theoretical analysis.
Takahashi et al.9 found that hexagonal robots rotate and
move in all directions at the same time better than rectangular
ones by comparing stability margin and stroke in wave gait,
but no experimental results were presented. Chu and Pang31
compared the fault-tolerant gait and the 4+2 gait for two types
of hexapods of the same size. They proved theoretically that
hexagonal hexapod robots have superior stability margin,
stride, and turning ability compared to rectangular robots.
It is also worth to mention here a work carried out by P.
Gonzale de Santos et al.32–33 They optimized the structure
of rectangular hexapods and found that extending the length
of middle legs of rectangular robots helps in saving energy.
This outcome can be seen as a transition from rectangular
six-legged robots to hexagonal ones.
To date many studies have been given for different Fig. 1. NOROS robot structure.
hexapod locomotion. However a comprehensive comparison
among different gaits and between rectangular and hexagonal
hexapods does not appear to have been published. The topic The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 simply
is still a subject of research and new gaits can be found. addresses the structure and physical parameters of NOROS
This paper focuses on a typical six-legged hexagonal robot robot. In Section 3, normal gaits of hexagonal hexapods are
with three-DOF legs. First, a summary of the gaits for such summarized and analyzed. In Section 4 fault-tolerant gaits
robots is presented, and then they are compared with those for hexapods are proposed Section 5 concerns the ability to
of general rectangular six-legged. An extensive study is walk over rough terrain. In Section 6, the trajectories of feet
performed with new types of gaits, and comparative studies tips are provided and simulated experiment and simulation
on stability and ability in avoiding obstacles are carried out. results of discussed gaits based on the NOROS robot are
Fault-tolerant gaits are discussed for the cases of rupture of presented in Section 7. Finally, conclusions are drawn.
one leg or two legs. In the literature, it appears that only
opposite damaged legs are treated. Here, we tackle also
the failure of two adjacent legs and two separated by one
normal leg. Other aspects of hexapod robots’ locomotion 2. Structure Of NOROS Robot
such as surmounting obstacles and climbing slope are Lunar robots have become a hot topic in recent years.
probed as well. To facilitate simulations and experiments, The lunar surface is covered with a thick layer of dust
we provide new kinematics in which the coupling effect of (called regolith) and unknown obstacles that make wheeled
swing legs on supporting legs is considered. Finally, stride locomotion difficult. The NOROS robot (Fig. 1a) has six legs
selection is analyzed from the mathematical point of view. which are suitable for walking on such soft soil. It has also
Most the gaits discussed herein have been tested with a wheels on each leg to achieve high speeds when hard smooth
NOROS prototype, which is an improved version of the surfaces are encountered. The body of the NOROS robot
double-locomotion (wheel and leg) model “Ladyfly.”34–36 is a hemispherical shell, inside which electronic circuitry,
The Ladyfly robot was developed in 2003 within a project of communication systems and control hardware are housed.
space robotic exploration, devoted to Mars and Moon. It was Its six legs are distributed evenly around the shell. The
first presented in ref. [37], among a group of projects dealing structure of a single leg is as in Fig. 1(b). It consists of
with “intelligence in space robotics.” The wheel system of three elements: hip, thigh and calf, connected together by
NOROS is not analyzed in the present paper. two parallel revolute joints, coxa and knee, with rotating
Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot 3
Table I. Main physical parameters of designed NOROS robot.

Each leg
Hip Thigh Calf Body

Mass (kg) m1 = 0.80 m2 = 2.00 m3 = 2.00 mb = 10.9

Length (m) l1 = 0.09 l2 = 0.30 l3 = 0.30 rb = 0.36

axes parallel to the ground. The hip is then connected to the

body by the waist joint that rotates around a vertical axis.
Main parameters of the new designed NOROS, which will
be used for subsequent analysis and simulation, are listed in
Table I.
Similar to other references,3–7,31 several assumptions
concerning gaits and kinematics of the hexapod are made
for the analysis carried out in the subsequent sections:
(1) Point contact between foot and ground;
(2) No slipping between foot and ground;
(3) Known special starting foothold positions.

3. Normal Gaits
Beside the free gait,25–28 a hexapod robot has several types
of periodic gait. Normally, it can walk with the tripod “3+3”
type of gait, “4+2” type of gait and “5+1’ gait.

3.1. “3+3” tripod gait Fig. 2. Natural tripod gaits.

The tripod continuous gaits are characterized by having three
legs standing on the ground for supporting and pushing the
body forward, and the other three legs lifting off and swinging
forward. In each gait period, the body moves two steps. The
duty factor β 21 is 1/2.
According to current studies, the hexagonal hexapod robot
has two periodic tripod gaits similar to that of rectangular
robots The first one is the insect wave gait which is
characterized by a forward wave of stepping actions on each
side of the body with a half-cycle phase shift between the two
Fig. 3. Simplified structure of insect gait.
members of any right or left pair.26 In Fig. 2(a) a scheme of the
robot is sketched, where the main direction of the movement,
defined as main walking direction, as shown is upwards, with the closed chain including supporting legs, body and ground,
legs moving in groups of three swing forward. The second the number of DOF F is 3. Only when the robot needs to turn,
one is the mammal kick-off gait where legs generally move the waist joints become active and rotate to change direction.
in a vertical plane like human’s walking and trajectories of In addition to the periodic tripod gaits mentioned above, we
feet are along legs. The robot is depicted in Fig. 2(b), and it introduce here new type of mixed gait. During walking, the
walks mainly from left to right like a crab. mixed gait has a supporting area in the form of an equilateral
In the following Figs. 3 and 4, ‘R’ and ‘S’ denote triangle (ABC or DEF in Fig. 5). The dark point in Fig.
respectively. revolute and spherical joint, subscript ‘f ’, 5 is the gravity center of the body. In every half period, one
‘k’, ‘c,’ and ‘w’ denote ‘foot’, ‘knee’, ‘coxa,’ and ‘waist’, leg walks as in the mammal gait and two legs walk as in the
respectively. For instance, ‘Rc ’ specifies that the coxa is a insect gait. Between feet and ground there are one revolute
revolute joint; ‘Sf ’ tells that between foot and ground, a and two spherical joints. The number of DOF of the mixed
virtual spherical joint is assumed gait is 4. Figure 6 describes the walking sequence of the
In the insect wave gait, the waist joints are the most active mixed gait
joints during walking, and each foot needs three DOFs. In ref. [21], it was claimed that a hexapod insect wave gait
The connection between each foot and the ground can be has the optimum stability among all hexapod periodic and
considered as a spherical joint (Sf in Fig. 3). regular gaits in the range of 1/2< β <1. While this is true for
In the mammal kick-off gait, the waist joints do not move rectangular hexapod robots, it does not hold for hexagonal
during straight line walking. The connection between a foot ones
and the ground can be considered as revolute joints (Rf in From Fig. 2 to Fig. 6, it is can be seen that, for a given
Fig. 4a). This structure can be simplified as in Fig. 4(b). For robot, the insect wave gait has the same size of supporting
4 Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot
Table II. Maximum stride of tripod gait of hexagonal hexapod
along main walking direction.

Maximum stride along main

walking direction
Stability Kinematics
Stability margin for margin for
margin designed designed
formula NOROS NOROS
√
3rb (rb + l12 )
Insect gait 14.57 cm >20 cm
4l12 + 3rb
Mammal gait rb + ll 69 cm 21.96 cm
rb + l12
Mixed gait 34.5 cm 20.75 cm
2

the longest step the robot can stretch without losing stability.
Given a robot and its initial state, we define rb as the body
radius and ll2 as the leg length (Fig. 2). Assuming that the
robot’s body moves in a plane at a constant height from the
ground, the maximum strides for the three gaits are calculated
Fig. 4. Mammal gait. and shown in Table II. Parameters are from Table I.
From Table II we see that a hexagonal hexapod such
as NOROS walking with the insect gait has a stability
margin shorter than its kinematics margin therefore there
is a possibility for loss of stability. Whereas the mammal and
mixed gaits can guarantee static stability with any feasible
stride, while the mammal gait has a slight longer maximum
feasible stride because of kinematics limitation. From the
control point of view, for straight line main direction walking,
the simplest gait is the wave gait where all legs have the
same trajectory, while the most complex is the mixed gait.
However, the mixed gait has a higher statically stability-
margin defined as the minimum distance from the gravity
center of body to each edge of the supporting polygon
Concerning turning ability, the insect wave gait needs a
special gait,1,22,24,31 while the mammal gait turns through a
small angle by adjusting all waist joints at the same time,
and does not need a special transition period except for large
Fig. 5. Mixed gait. angle turning. The mixed gait can turn through a large angle
by adjusting the heading leg. For example, assume initially
the walking angle is 0◦ while the leading led is leg 1 (Fig. 5)
and the leg groups are 1+3+5 and 2+4+6 Then the robot will
make a 60◦ turn if the leading leg is changed to leg 2.
Experimental results will be presented in Section 4 later
concerning the turning capabilities of these three gaits.

3.2. “4+2” gait

The rectangular hexapod robot has another type of gait, the
“4+2” gait.31 For this gait the legs are grouped into three
groups. Every time there are four legs (two groups) standing
Fig. 6. Mixed gait sequence.
on the ground to support the body, two other legs rise and
walk ahead. In one gait period, there are three steps and
area ABC as the mammal gait; on the other hand, the mixed the body moves only one step. The duty factor is 2/3. The
gait has the largest supporting area. We can now characterize hexagonal six-legged robot also has this gait with same leg
the steps a robot can place. sequences as that of a rectangular hexapod,
Along the main walking direction (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3), we This gait shows fault-tolerant ability under certain
call kinematics margin the maximum stride a robot can reach conditions,4,6,24,31 because three legs can support the body
due to its physical conditions (structure and length of legs, even if one supporting leg broken during walking. Chu and
flexibility of joints, etc); define then the stability margin as Pang31 had proved that the hexagonal robot by this gait has
Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot 5
advantages compared with rectangular ones in stability, stride
and turning ability, if the turning angle is within [−30◦ , 30◦ ].

3.3. “5+1” one by one gait

The robot can also move its legs one by one. This gait
displays higher fault tolerance than the gaits discussed above.
However, the duty factor is only 5/6 so that the efficiency is
very low. This gait is just used for special movement, such as
rotating the body, walking over highly irregular terrain, and
avoiding big obstacles and so on.

3.4. Transition between different gaits

Many hexapod robots use only one type of the
aforementioned gaits. Some references discuss more than
one gait, but few considered how to transition from one to
another. the transitions may be straightforward to implement,
it still worth a comparison here.
Among tripod gaits, just two steps are required to transition
from one to another because tripod gaits have two steps
in each gait period. Figure 7 is an example of transition
from the mammal tripod gait to the mix tripod gait. Dashed
lines denote the swinging legs, solid lines denote supporting
legs.
From “3+3” tripod gait to “4+2” quadruped gait, three
steps are needed, the body just moves once, while from “4+2”
to “3+3” two steps are needed and the body also moves once.

4. Fault-Tolerant Gaits
In arduous operating environments, robots may confront
accidents and damage their legs; their legs may be dual-
used as arms for some tasks, or some joints may suffer loss
of control, etc. In such cases, biped or quadruped robots
would become statically unstable However hexapods may
still walk with static stable because their six legs provide
redundancy. In this subsection we discuss these fault-tolerant
gaits.

4.1. Joint lock

In this case, Yang5 has already proposed a discontinuous
tripod gait for rectangular hexapod robots
However, with joint-lock a hexagonal hexapod may still
maintain a continuous gait. The three possibilities for a single
Fig. 7. Transition sequence from mammal tripod to mix tripod.
locked joint on one leg are discussed in the following:
(1) Waist joint lock. In this case, the faulty leg cannot move
in a horizontal plane, but it can swing in a vertical plane. The
However, for symmetric hexagonal robot, there is only one
insect wave gait is difficult for this situation; whereas the
case because the structure of every leg is the same and
mammal gait is still available by adjusting the other legs in
distributed evenly around the body. The 2+1+2 gait has same
parallel with the faulty leg. Also the mixed gait is possible if
sequence as ref. [4]. The difference is in the positions the
we chose the broken leg as the leading leg, or the leg opposite
leg.. The legs of the the gaits in ref. [4] are overlapping. The
as healing leg.
symmetrical hexapod robot needs three steps to achieve this
(2) Knee or coax joint lock. For these two cases, the
walk. During this procedure, the robot’s body moves two
mammal gait and mixed gait are impossible to realize, but
steps.
the insect gait is feasible, although not as efficient as before
injury. If one whole leg is locked, the discontinuous tripod
gait can be employed. 4.3. Loss of two legs
There are three cases where two legs are either faulty or being
4.2. Loss of one leg used for other tasks. The positions of these two unavailable
In the case of loss of one leg is due to fault or use for legs may be opposite, adjacent or separated-by-one (two
other tasks; two possibilities were considered in ref [4]. damaged separated by one normal leg). Some studies9 have
6 Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot

been done in the first case, but there is a lack of study on the
other two cases:
(1) The opposite-legs case. Losing two opposite legs,
for example, leg i and leg j the hexapod robot becomes a
quadruped robot. It can walk with one of quadruped gaits
which have been widely studied. For example, the craw gait
(Chen et al.38 ), the diagonal gait (Hirose39 ), mammal-type
“3+1”gait (Tsujita et al.40 ), “3+1”craw gait (McGhee et al.26
and Chen41 ) which maintains static stability at each step, and
the omnidirectional updated quadruped free gait in refs. [42,
43].
(2) The two-separated-by-one case and adjacent case. For
these two cases the two unavailable legs are on the same side
therefore it is almost impossible for a general rectangular
hexapod robot to have statically stable locomotion. For
a hexagonal robot the insect wave periodic gait is still
available. The other four legs can be adjusted to suitable
initial positions, as shown in Fig. 8 for example. Figuer 8(a)
is the case of losing leg 1 and leg 3. Fig. 8(b) shows the
case where leg 1 and leg 2 are unavailable. Following the
four-leg periodic gait sequence, robots can realize statically
stable walking. The crab angle will be different For example,
if leg 1 and leg 2 or leg 1 and leg 3 are unusable, the crab
angle will be −π/6 as shown in Fig. 8. Figure 9 lists the leg
sequences for a separated-by-one fault-tolerant gait. At each
instant, there are three or four legs supporting the body. The
mass center is inside the supporting area.
For the adjacent case, the leg sequence is similar to
the separated-by-one case after adjusting to suitable initial
positions.
To realize statically stable walking, there are several
requirements in Fig. 8:
(1) AE = BF = CG = DH  = L;
(2) L ≥ R cos( π3 );
(3) GG = H H  = s, the body stride;
(4) s < G O2 = O2 H  ;
(5) EO1 = O1 F = O2 G = O2 H  = R sin( π3 )
The rules for the quadruped insect wave gait are:
(1) Rear legs (leg 4 and leg 5 in Fig. 9) must not cross the
central line (the point-dashed line in Fig. 8) while moving
ahead, so that the mass center will also be in the subsequent
supporting area.
(2) Front legs (leg 1 and leg 2 in Fig. 9) should not go back
to the central line while the body (center of mass) is moving
ahead.
(3) The stride of the swing legs is twice that of the body.
Fig. 8. Transition sequence from mammal tripod to mix tripod.
Setting the body reference frame as in Fig. 10, where Xo
is parallel to the initial direction of hip 1; axis Yo is parallel
to the ground, Zo is obtained according to right hand rule.
by angle θ5 (Eq. (6)); Leg 6 moves from P6 to F with stride
From the initial position (Fig. 10) to the fault-tolerant initial
P6 H (Eq. (7)) and rotates by angle θ6 ( Eq. (8)):
state (Fig. 8), we can adjust the legs according to following
procedures (Eqs. (1)–(10))
If two faults occur on two legs that separated by one, for 
example leg 1 and leg 3 the following procedure can be used  π 2   π 2
to move the other legs from the original initial positions to P2 F = L sin + L − (l1 + l 2 ) cos ,
3 3
the fault-tolerant initial positions: (1)
Leg 2 moves from P2 to F with stride P2 F (Eq. (1)) and
rotates by angle θ2 ( Eq. (2)) ; Leg 4 moves from P4 to E with  
L − (l1 + l 2 ) cos( π3 ) π
stride P4 E (Eq. (3)) and rotates by angle θ4 ( Eq. (4)) ; Leg θ2 = a tan − , (2)
5 moves from P5 to G with stride P5 G (Eq. (5)) and rotates L sin( π3 ) 6
Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot 7
  π 2   π 2
P4 E = (l1 + l 2 ) − L cos + L sin ,
3 3
(3)
 
L sin( π3 )
θ4 = a tan , (4)
(l1 + l 2 ) − L cos( π3 )

  π 2   π  2
P5 G = L−(l1 + l2 ) cos + (l1 + l2 ) sin −s ,
3 3
(5)

π L − (l1 + l2 ) cos( π3 )
θ5 = − a tan  , (6)
6 (l1 + l2 ) sin π3 − s

  π 2  π  2
P6 H = l1 + l2 − L + R cos + R sin −s ,
3 3
(7)
  
2π R sin( π3 ) − s
θ6 = − a tan . (8)
3 l1 + l2 − L + R cos( π3 )
For the adjacent-legs case, the only difference is for the leg
between the two faulty legs, leg 3 for example. The foot tip
of leg 3 will move from P3 to F with the following stride and
rotation angle,
  π 2   π 2
P3 F = l1 + l 2 − L + R cos + R sin ,
3 3
(9)
 
π R sin( π3 )
θ3 = − + a tan . (10)
3 l1 + l 2 − L + R cos( π3 )
In the above equations, R sin( π3 ) ≤ L < l1 + l2
D. Loss of more than two legs
If more than two legs are lost, the robot is unable to
maintain static stability while walking. Dynamic gaits may
Fig. 9. Leg sequence separated-by-one case fault-tolerant gait. still be possible, such as the three-leg dynamics gait of Lee
and Hirose.44 These will not be discussed further here.

5. Terrain Adaptability
The symmetric hexapod robot has different capabilities to
deal with rough terrain using different gaits.

5.1. Terrain adaptability with side wave movement

As shown in Fig. 11, a single leg can avoid obstacles
or ditches over an area of [−90◦ , 90◦ ] using a side wave
movement. It can overcome an obstacle which is no higher
than the length of the calf plus the length of thigh. The width
and length of obstacles or ditches are limited to the shaded
area in the figure if the body does not move. The lifting leg
can overcome wider obstacles and ditches when the robot
body is moving.

Fig. 10. Body reference frame (top view). 5.2. Terrain adaptability with kick off movement
Using the kick-off (mammal) gait, the maximum step occurs
only when the calf and thigh lie on a straight line (Fig. 12).
8 Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot

Fig. 11. Terrain adaptability of wave leg.

Fig. 13. Terrain adaptability of kick-off (mammal) leg.

Fig. 12. Terrain adaptability of kick-off (mammal) leg. Fig. 14. Body reference frame Wb , 3-open-chains+3-closed-chain.

6. Joined Kinematics and Feet/body Trajectories

The configuration of obstacles is limited to the shaded area
6.1. Jointed kinematics
in Fig. 12. Figure 12(b) reveals that, as the stride becomes
Some studies of the kinematics of multileg robots treat the
longer the height under the leg becomes smaller and the
swing legs and supporting legs separately.45–52 However, for
obstacle which the mammal leg can overcome becomes
leg-walking robots, transferring legs’ movement depend not
lower In summary, the leg walking as in insect wave gait
only on its three joints but also on the supporting legs. The
has a greater ability to overcome obstacles or ditches than
movements of all legs are related.
the mammal/kick-off gait.
Let us assume that the body of the robot is parallel to the
ground surface at the initial position. We define three types
of system reference frames: the absolute reference frame Wo ,
5.3. Slope climbing ability body reference frame Wb which is fixed at the mass center of
For rigid robots, there are two ways to climb slopes. One the robot body (Fig. 14), and single leg reference frames Wi
ways is keeping the body parallel to ground, the other is (Fig. 15) which are set at the waist joint of the ith leg.
keeping the body horizontal, as shown in Fig. 13 For the body reference frame Wb , initial Xb (0) is parallel
For a rigid hexapod robot, gait planning and control are to the hip-axis of the leading leg, the origin is at the mass
easier using the first method. This is because in the second center of the body. For the absolute reference, Xo , Yo , Zo are
method the legs will have different trajectories from the flat the same as Xb (0), Yb (0), Zb (0), the initial direction of the
walking case. However, using the second methods the robot body reference. The origin of absolute reference frame is on
can climb steeper slopes. the ground, but along the Yb (0). For the leg reference frame,
Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot 9

Fig. 16. Trajectory of foot tip.

where‘c’ denotes ‘cosine’, ‘s’ denotes ‘sine’, ‘ij ’ denotes

the angle of joint j of leg i; the waist, coxa and knee joint
are indexed by 1, 2, 3, respectively with 23 denoting the
combination of coax and knee joints; the length of hip, thigh,
and calf are denoted by l1 , l2 , l3 , respectively.
Fig. 15. Leg reference frame Wi .

6.2. Feet trajectory planning with zero impact walking

Xwi is along the hip axis; Ywi is along the waist-joint rotate When walking on rough terrain and overcoming small
axis, Zwi completes a right-hand frame. obstacles, or changing directions, the trajectories of feet and
Assume that the body does not rotate during each step. body of the robot must be planned.
The kinematics of the whole hexagonal hexapod robot is as Feet trajectories are designed according to the terrain,
follows: shape of obstacles, ditches, holes and stairs, which can be
no higher than the calf length.
⎧    
⎪   θ˙b θ˙b Connect the initial point A(x1 , y1 , z1 ) with end point
⎪
⎨ rf k,o = Jb,o bk RJLk,k = Jf k,o , (11a) B(x3 , y3 , z3 ) by a straight line. Find the highest point
θ˙k θ˙k D(x2 , y2 , z2 ) above the straight line, and set point C as
⎪
⎪
⎩ (x2 , y2 + 0.1(y2 − min(y1 , y3 )), z2 ) Point C is set higher than
f k,o = bk Rf k,k (11b)
point D to avoid collision. A parabolic curve can then be
interpolated at A, B, and C as shown in Fig. 16
where k is the number of swing legs; Jf k,o denotes the To avoid impact between feet and the ground, the initial
Jacobian matrix of the swing leg in the absolute reference; and final velocity and acceleration of the foot-tips as well as
rf˙k,o is the linear velocity of the swing foot k in the absolute the initial and final angular velocities and accelerations of
reference frame; f k,o is the angular velocity of the swing joints are chosen to be zero
foot k in the absolute reference frame. f k,o is the angular The trajectories of the foot-tips, in the absolute reference
velocity of the swinging foot k in the leg reference frame Wk system are as follows:
(replacing i with k) in Fig. 15; Jb,o = [Jb1,o · · · Jbi,o · · ·
Jbn,o ] is the Jacobian matrix of the body in the absolute
⎧
reference frame; i is the index specifying the supporting leg; ⎪ disf i,o = Af i (φt − sin(φt)) (14a)
⎨
JLk,k is the Jacobian matrix of the swinging legs in the leg
velf i,o = Af i (φ − φ cos(φt)) (14b)
reference frame; bi R is the transfer matrix from leg reference ⎪
⎩
to body reference frame, given by accf i,o = Af i φφ sin(φt)) (14c)
⎡ ⎤
cos(θoi ) 0 sin(θoi ) ⎧
⎢ ⎥ ⎪ x = disf i,o cos(θxz,f i,o ) (15a)
b
=⎢ 0 1 0 ⎥ ⎨ f i,o
iR ⎣ ⎦ (12)
xf˙i,o = velf i,o cos(θxz,f i,o ) (15b)
⎪
⎩
− sin(θoi ) 0 cos(θoi ) xf¨i,o = accf i,o cos(θxz,f i,o ) (15c)

and Jbi,o = bi RJLi,i is the Jacobian matrix of each supporting ⎧

leg in the global reference frame given by ⎪
⎪ y = adisf2 i,o + bdisf i,o + c (16a)
⎨ f i,o
yf˙i,o = (2adisf i,o + b)velf i,o (16b)
⎡ ⎤ ⎪
⎪
−(a)si1 −(b)ci1 l3 ci23 ci1 ⎩
yf¨i,o = (2adisf i,o + b)accf i,o + 2a(velf i,o )2 (16c)
⎢ ⎥
JLi,i = ⎣ 0 l2 ci2 + l3 si23 l3 si23 ⎦
−(a)ci1 −l3 ci23 si1 ⎧
(b)si1 (13) ⎪ z = disf i,o sin(θxz,f i,o ) (17a)
⎨ f i,o
a = l1 + l2 ci2 + l3 si23 zf˙i,o = velf i,o sin(θxz,f i,o ) (17b)
⎪
⎩
b = l2 si2 − l3 ci23 zf¨i,o = accf i,o sin(θxz,f i,o ) (17c)
10 Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot
Lsl
Af i = (18)
sin(φ 2 ) −
T
φ T2

π
φ=4 ; (19)
T
where: T is the period; ; Lsl = x3 − x1 is the step-length of
lifting legs ;xf i,o , yf i,o and zf i,o are coordinates of the robot’s
feet along axes X, Y , and Z in the absolute reference system;
a, b, and c are parameters of the parabolic trajectory; θxz,f o
is the angle between the walking-direction line and axis X
on plane X − Z.
The equations above represent trajectories in the absolute
reference system. If the gravity center of the body keeps the
same distance to the ground, the trajectory of foot-tips can
be expressed as Eqs. (20)–(24):
⎧
⎪ disb,o = Ab (φt − sin(φt)) (20a)
⎨
velb,o = Ab (φ − φ cos(φt)) (20b)
⎪
⎩
accb,o = Ab φφ sin(φt)) (20c)

⎧
⎪ x = disb,o cos(θxz,b ) (21a)
⎨ b,o
˙ = velb,o cos(θxz,b )
xb,o (21b)
⎪
⎩
¨ = accb,o cos(θxz,b )
xb,o (21c)

⎧
⎪ y =0 (22a)
⎨ b,o
˙ =0
yb,o (22b)
⎪
⎩
¨ =0
yb,o (22c) Fig. 17. Stride of mammal gait protruding.

⎧
⎪ z = −disb,o sin(θxz,b ) (23a)
⎨ b,o variation rates of coxa and knee over stride increase suddenly
˙ = −velb,o sin(θxz,b )
zb,o (23b) after the stride reaches around 21.9 cm, passing from less
⎪
⎩ than 10◦ /cm to more than 200◦ /cm, as shown in Fig. 17(b).
¨ = −accb,o sin(θxz,b )
zb,o (23c)
Empirically, 20 cm can be a good solution for the mammal
protruding stride. At 20 cm the angular variation rates of coxa
L step and knee are only −2.88◦ /cm and 6.78◦ /cm respectively,
Ab = , (24) much less than −14.5◦ /cm and 30◦ /cm at 21.9 cm. During
sin(φ T2 ) − φ T2
mammal retracting the changing rate of coxa increases with
where, L step is the stride of the body in half T ; xb , yb and zb the stride while the one of knee decreases. Nevertheless, both
are the coordinates of the position of robot’s body along axes changing rates are small even the retracting stride reaches
X, Y , and Z in the absolute reference system; θxz,b is the angle high values as 28 cm (Fig. 18). Therefore, it is useful to
between body trajectory and the X-axis. If the trajectory of optimize the stride selection in the mammal gait when legs
˙
˙ and d(cos(θxz,b )θxz,b
the body is a straight line, both θxz,b will be are protruding but not while retracting.
dt
zero. Other parameters are same as in Eqs. (14)–(17). According to Table II in Section 3, in the insect wave gait
of NOROS, the stride can reach 14.57 cm without losing
6.3. Stride selection static stability. In such gait, the of the coax joint changes less
The problem of stride optimization did not receive great than 1◦ and the knee joint angle changes a little from 0◦ to
attention in literature. Some researchers tried to implement 6.8◦ (Fig. 19). Consequently, it is unnecessary to optimize the
the robot gait with the maximum stride achievable by the stride selection for insect walking under static stability. For
leg.3,6 However, using the maximum stride is unnecessary the mammal gait, to produce the same stride, the waist joint
and inefficient in some situations according to the analysis angle is 0◦ , the coax joint angle changes from 0◦ to 7.5◦ , the
we report in the following. knee joint angle approaches 37◦ . To retract the same stride,
Figure 17 depicts the rotation angle of knee and coax joints the waist joint angle is 0◦ , the coxa joint angle changes from
as a function of stride while the leg protrudes as in mammal 0◦ to 7◦ , the knee joint angle approaches about 28◦ . For same
gait. The maximum stride for a mammal protruding leg of stride, the angular velocities of the mammal gait are much
NOROS is about 22 cm, as stated in Table II The angular higher than in the insect wave gait.
Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot 11
Table III. Parameters of Prototype.

Each leg
Hip Thigh Calf Body

Mass (kg) 0.11 0.25 0.09 0.30

Length (cm) l1 = 3 l2 = 7 l3 = 13 R = 13.7

Fig. 20. 3+3 mix-gait.

Fig. 21. 3+3 mammal-gait.

Fig. 18. Strider of mammal gait retracting.

Fig. 22. 3+3 insect-gait.

Fig. 19. Relationship among joint-angles and stride of insect gait. Fig. 23. 4+2 gait.

7. Experiments (MINI-ABB+SSC32 with Basic Atom PRO) was installed.

Experimental studies were performed for most of the Both wired and wireless communications are available. Wi-
aforementioned gaits using the old prototype from Ladyfly Fi 802.11b is used for wireless communication.
since the prototype of new design is under construction. The The normal 3+3 and 4+2 gaits were successfully tested
current prototype is about one-third-scale of our previous (Fig. 20–23).
design and its calf is not as long as the thigh. The physical During the experiments, we found that the mixed gait was
parameters for this prototype are as given in Table III. Note the most stable, followed by the mammal gait and then insect
that the thigh of this prototype is relatively shorter than our gait is the least stable. For the maximum possible stride, the
design, whereas its calf is relatively longer. longest was from the mammal gait, then the mixed gait and
Each leg has three revolute joints actuated by position lastly the insect gait. The longest stride for the insect gait is
controlled servo-motors. An onboard micro-controller nearly half that of the mammal gait, as suggested in Table II.
12 Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot

Fig. 24. Turn left with 20◦ by mix-gait.

Fig. 27. The 4-leg-gait while two opposite legs (1 and 4) broken.

Fig. 25. Turn left 120◦ by mix-gait.

Fig. 26. The 5-leg-gait while leg 1 broken.

Fig. 28. Fault-tolerant gait of two adjacent legs losing.
For the current prototype, the maximum possible stride of
the insect gait is less than 3 cm, while for the mammal gait,
it can reach 7 cm. transferring right front leg, then moving body the first time,
The turning experiments were also conducted for each gait. transferring left rear leg, transferring left front leg, finally
Small angle (−30◦ , 30◦ ) turning could be achieved easily by moving body the second time.
adjusting the crab angle for all mammal and mixed gaits. For the cases of loss of two adjacent legs and two legs
Figure 24 displays a left turn of 20◦ using the mixed gait. that are separated by one, simulation in ADAMS controlled
Special angle (n · 60◦ , n = 1, 2. . .5) turning by mixed gait through MATLAB were performed with our new design
was achieved by changing the leading leg (leg 2, leg 3 . . . leg because servo-motors installed on the current prototype
6). Figure 25 informs the turning by 120◦ using the mixed were not powerful enough to realize those gaits. For all
gait. Other angles’ turnings were reached by changing the simulations, the parameters of digital model are from Table
leading leg together with appropriate adjustment of the crab I in Section 2.
angle. For example, to make a 100◦ turn, use leg 3 as the The experiments for overcoming obstacles were also
leading leg with crab angle +20◦ . successful, as demonstrated by overcoming a 3 cm plate
For the current prototype, it is difficult to turn through the and 8 cm book as shown in Fig. 30. The prototype could
insect gait. During our experiments, turning by the insect overcome the same height as the length of the calf.
gait always made the prototype fallen down, unless a very
small stride was used, could turning be achieved. The mixed
gait is the most stable in tripod gaits because of the large Conclusion
supporting areas. The 4+2 mixed gait is even more stable. In this paper, the locomotion of symmetric hexapods has
However, the continuous mixed tripod gait is more efficient been studied in detail and tested mostly on a NOROS
than 4+2 mixed gait as their duty factors are 0.5 and 0.75 prototype We have presented a comprehensive study of
respectively. hexagonal hexapod gaits including normal and fault-tolerant
Fault-tolerant gaits were tested successfully with loss of ones. Gaits of rectangular and hexagonal six-legged robots
one leg lost (Fig. 26) and loss of two legs (Fig. 27–29). have been compared from several aspects: stability, fault
For the case of loss of two legs, seven steps were needed tolerance, terrain adaptability, and walking ability. To
for one walking period (Fig. 27): transferring right rear leg, facilitate simulations and experiments we have provided
Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot 13

The results presented in this paper contribute to intelligent

locomotion for symmetric six-legged robots. Possible
applications include using multilegged robots over off-road
terrain, such as for planetary exploration. Our results on
for fault-tolerant gaits could multilegged robots to use some
of legs as arms to perform useful operations. Future works
should be focused on the study of energy cost of different
gaits, dynamic gaits, intelligent walking, and operations on
lunar surface.

Acknowledgments
Thanks to the China NSFC (Grant no. 50720135503), H-Tech
Research and Development Program of China (863 Program:
Grant no. 2006AA04Z207), and the S&T cooperation
program (2006–2009) of the Governments of China and
Italy for financial support to researchers exchange. Thanks
Fig. 29. Fault-tolerant gait of two meta-legs losing. for the support to the Laboratory of Robotics ARIAL of
Politecnico di Milano for the realization of NOROS prototype
and the development of tests, with the support of all the
team. Great gratitude to Prof. Chen I-Ming of Nanyang
Technological University and Dr. Jon Selig of London South
Bank University for their kind suggestions on the final
organization of this paper and English improvement. We also
thank Prof. J.Jim Zhu from Ohio University and Dr. Daniele
Fig. 30. Prototype overtaking a book with 3+3 mix-gait. Perissin from Politecnico di Milano for helping improving
English in revision.

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