A robot with an interesting wheel configuration.
Articulated Treads
I was surfing over at www.robotmag.com
the other day and ran across this
cool chassis for a robot. It is an articulated track design.
The treads can move up and down to gain height or shrink the
overall turn radius. I had to try this in bricks, here is the
result:
Each tread section is controlled by
its own motor. I use a combination of the worm gear and triangle
panel to provide power from the motor to the main shaft for each
tread section. A clearer picture of the worm gear/triangle
design can be seen here.
The trick to transferring power from
straight turning motion to moving the whole tread section is the
clutch gear (highlighted above). When the gear is out, the
treads rotate as power is passed through the clutch gear to the
treads.
When the clutch gear is in, the axle
is locked and power is transferred to the gears that provide
rotation for the whole tread assembly.
This is best demonstrated in video,
so here it is (Mpeg).
