Reflex assisted walking for a hexapod robot

Abstract: This paper describes the performance of a hexapod robot that uses low level leg reflexes to aid in walking over uneven terrain, and is currently being developed at the University of Johannesburg. The goal of this research is a robot able to deploy in both the inspection and search and rescue roles, within an underground mine environment. The robot has six legs with three degrees of freedom per leg, and is equipped with a two degree of freedom arm with a sensor payload attached to a pan-tilt system. Throughout the development of this new robot the Design Science Research Methodology was used to guide the decision making process. This paper presents an overview of the robot, including the control architecture, and the testing conducted to verify the robot’s performance when walking over a laboratory test field