/Lilibot

This is a small-sized friendly quadruped robot

Primary LanguageMakefileBSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" LicenseBSD-3-Clause

Lilibot

Introduction

Lilibot is a small size, light weight, and open-sourced quadruped robot. It was developed as a easily handling platform with multiple sensory feedback and flexible legs configurations for studying bio-inspired locomotion. The features of small size and light weight provide Lilibot with several apparent advantages, such as an easily modular design, and simple yet practical structure. It can be handled with ease to conduct joint control and locomotion generation, owing to its appropriate 1) actuator torque (4.2 Nm, which is not dangerous to handlers), 2) size (its length, width, and height are 30 cm, 17.5 cm, and 20 cm, respectively, when it stands), and 3) weight (2.5 kg) for operation. Moreover, it has considerable endurance capability, which allows it to handle an approximately 1.25 kg payload to walk up to 30 minutes. This enables Lilibot as a mobile platform to carry more sensors (for instance, cameras and laser radars for studying motion planning in irregular environments). In addition to the real robot, the compatible Lilibot simulator can improve the research efficiency by using simulation for pre-tests before doing experiments.

This repository includes the Lilibot CAD models, simulator on the virtual robot experimentation platform (V-REP, the new version of the V-REP is called CoppeliaSim at http://www.coppeliarobotics.com/) and its control framework. The control framework is based on the robot system operation (ROS), which provides communications between the real robot, controller, and the simulator (simulated robot). Thus, before one use this system, who need to install V-rep or CoppeliaSim and ROS on Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04.

Post

Framework

The files are organized as follows:

The control code is putted in controllers folder,and the robots folder is the interface code for a real robot. The Vrep simulation model was put in vrep_simulation folder. The mechanics and electronics can be found in hardware

The system overview can be seen in the following image.

Hardware

The hardware overview can be seen in here. The main components are as bellows:

Electronics

Onboard computer Motor communication board Power supply board IMU with USB2USART Force sensor

Mechanics

Foots Single leg Quadruped-Crawing Quadruped-Standing

Install

The steps to implement this project on your PC (Ubuntu OS):

Implementation of the simulated Lilibot

3.0) Install VREP

3.1) Install ROS kinetic or melodic depending on the version of your ubuntu

3.2) Install git

3.3) 'mkdir -p ~/workspace/stbot/ && cd ~/workspace/stbot/'

3.4) 'git clone https://gitlab.com/neutron-nuaa/lilibot'

3.5) 'cd ./lilibot/catkin_ws && catkin_make'

3.5) add a environment variable in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc, like this: 'export ROS_HOSTNAME=$(hostname)'

3.6) Run simularion, a) 'roscore' b) 'cd vrep_simualtion && vrep ~/workspace/stbot/vrep_simulation/lilibot-V5.ttt'

Implementation of the real Lilibot

  1. Prepare 12 XM430-W350-R servo motors

  2. Manufacture the components of the mechanics of Lilibot

  3. Assemble the componments and servos

  4. Prepare a onboard PC (e.g., NUC7i7DNBE), and connect the servos to your onboard PC through usb-rs485 transfer interface

  5. Install ROS kinetic or melodic depending on the version of your ubuntu

  6. Install git

  7. open a terminal and run command 'mkdir -p ~/workspace/stbot/ && cd ~/workspace/stbot/'

  8. open a terminal and run command 'git clone https://gitlab.com/neutron-nuaa/lilibot'

  9. run command 'cd ./lilibot/catkin_ws && catkin_make' in a terminal

  10. add a environment variable in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc, like this: 'export ROS_HOSTNAME=$(hostname)'

  11. Run the real robot,

Getting start

Just edit the file of lilibot_controller_node.cpp you can find this file at controller/catkin_ws/src/lilibot_controller/src/lilibot_controller_node.cpp

Video demos

Real robot

Simulated robot

Contact

If you have any question about how to use this, please feel free to contact Tao Sun (email: suntao.hn@gmail.com, or write a issue)

Citation

@article{sun2020small, title={Small-Sized Reconfigurable Quadruped Robot With Multiple Sensory Feedback for Studying Adaptive and Versatile Behaviors}, author={Sun, Tao and Xiong, Xiaofeng and Dai, Zhendong and Manoonpong, Poramate}, journal={Frontiers in Neurorobotics}, volume={14}, year={2020}, publisher={Frontiers Media SA} }