Fobot, the Hexapod Walking Robot

The idea behind the creation of the six-legged mobile robot called FOBOT was to design a robot that is -when placed in a specific geographic location - able to explore its unknown environment and send visual information from the area to the remote PC. To do this, it is necessary for the robot to be able to adapt itself to its environment, to have a high mobility and it has to be able to transmit information at a high rate. The cockroach-like movement of the robot is achieved by rotating legs, so it can use different walking-strategies for rough terrain. The DC motors on the feet are controlled by separate PIC microcontrollers.

The navigation is based on the analysis of the pictures of the environment and the data from the global positioning system (GPS) receiver. The camera on the front of the robot is monitoring the area in front of the robot to detect and avoid obstacles. The camera on top of the robot has a vertical-axis, mounted with PAL-optics and produces a 360 degree omnidirectional image of the outer world. With this system, the position of the robot can be calculated more accurately in a known environment. For getting the geographical position of the robot, the data from the built-in GPS receiver is used. The controlling-, the image- and the GPS data – right now – is transmitted over a cable connection, but the system is expandable to communicate over radio transmitted commands. The position and the movement of the robot; the GPS- and the image data are monitorable on the computer.