Further development and testing of the hybrid locomotion of workpartner robot

Legged locomotion is effective in extreme ground conditions, but not so good on hard ground with high speed. On the other hand, wheeled locomotion is excellent on hard ground with high speed but may be useless off-road when ground parameters change to be unsuitable for a wheel. In the previous conferences we have introduced a way to combine legged and wheeled locomotion to a hybrid mode, called rolking, to gain effective mobility both in natural terrain and in structured environment. In addition to effective mobility, rolking mode makes it possible to measure the shapes and unevenness of the ground by probing it with the wheel-leg limb during locomotion. The paper reports development and testing experiences of this hybrid locomotion. In the test, the WorkPartner robot is climbing stairs and rolking in a deep snow