Modular Robotization of Crawler Robots to Reduce Risk of Failure

Abstract

Crawler robots are mainly used as ground robots on uneven terrain such as disaster areas, but they lack redundancy and cannot move immediately if the crawler belt breaks. Therefore, the concept of modular robots has been introduced to crawler robots to reduce the risk of failure through a self-repair function. In addition, the load on all modules is equalized by the module placement optimization algorithm, preventing the recurrence of failures due to a large load only on a specific module. The module placement optimization algorithm was significantly superior to previous studies evaluated with a t-test at a significance level of 0.05.