Design of Omni-directional Hexapod Robot with Horizontal Coxa Joint

Legged robots have great potential to travel across rough terrain, but they mostly move quite slow. This paper deals with the design and construction of a omni-directional seven degrees of freedom hexapod (i.e. six-legged) robot which is equipped with a horizontal coxa joint. The wheels can be used in flat terrain so the robot can reach higher speeds and additional coxa joint makes the robot more robust when climbing in rough terrain. The robot is controlled by terrain adaptive movement controller, which reacts on terrain difficulty and adjusts robot movement speed and gait.