Patent approved for Posable Hubs for Robotic Platforms
Tim Hojnik, one of our PhD students under the supervision of Professor Jonathan Roberts (QUT) and Mr Paul Flick (CSIRO) is working on Posable Hubs For Robotic Platforms, aiming to increase the traversability of robotic platforms in rough terrains as well as increase chassis stability, which allows carrying of sensitive payloads.
Recent developments to Tim’s work include the construction of a rover test platform where four posable hub wheels were mounted to a self-contained rover and proceeded to test its body pose manipulation, ride height adjustments, motorless motion and debogging abilities.
This work has already led to multiple publications and it has just had a patent approved (WO2020047609) for the wheel arrangement of this proprietary technology – congratulations Tim and all involved!
The video below shows the functionality of a single wheel, independently of the rest of the system, as well as full pose adjustment using all four wheel to maintain a level chassis on sloped terrain.
It further demonstrates the rover’s ability to generate motorless, rotational, motion without the use of a DC power motor. This is done by offsetting the hubs to generate a moment about the wheel’s geometric centre of rotation, and convert gravitational potential energy to rotational energy.
In addition, it demonstrates active rover wheelbase adjustment which helps the rover dig itself out of a bog.
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