A CPG-Based Control Method for the Multi-Mode Locomotion of a Desert Spider Robot

Inspired by the desert spider which can perform various movements, a spider robot with double-six-bar-closed-chain 5R mechanism is designed, in which 16 active joints are controlled by DC (direct current) servo motors. A CPG (central pattern generator) motion control model based on Hopf oscillator is proposed to realize handspring, crawl, cartwheel gaits and gait switching of the spider robot. Matlab and ADAMS are used to perform dynamics simulation on multi-mode locomotion of the spider robot. The results show that the robot can execute handspring, crawl and cartwheel motion continuously and smoothly, and the bionic CPG control method applied to multi-mode locomotion of the closed-chain robot is feasible.