QUATTRO - The Arduino Quadruped

Description

Here's a spider robot that we had made for the 2016 science fair which was held at our school. Well, you can't technically call it a "spider robot" as spiders have 8 legs, but we atleast tried to make it look like a spider (or maybe spider like) . Our robot has four legs, so the correct term would be a quadruped. Well guys say hello to "Quattro", a non lethal, arduino quadruped!We developed our program through the equations of Inverse Kinematics. Our robot has vision to help himself manoeuvre past obstacles. We made it voice contolled but remote controlled will work as well. Here is how we made her, taking you through the building process, getting to the programming and finally admiring the robot come to life once its finally done :) . Watch the video to get an idea of what it will finally look like, the problems we encountered and how we solved it and improved it.

Details

Quattro is a quadruped that we developed that can do several things.

Made with acrylic for maximum strength.
Designed to look like a spider.

Coordinates it's movement with 12 micro servo motors.

Obstacle avoidance capability.
Fully autonomous capability
Last but not least a very skilled dancer, follow on to know more.

Files

Quattro parts.pdf

Here is the file for the lasercutting. All the parts are here, all you need to do is laser cut them.

Adobe Portable Document Format - 10.37 kB - 07/19/2017 at 13:53

Preview

leg_init.ino

Quattro's legs need to start at their "initial position". To do this run the servo motors with this program and then set the legs to their correct positions.

ino - 456.00 bytes - 07/19/2017 at 13:53

Download

Quattro_test.ino

Better run this on a cup as a support. Quatro should before it's gait.

ino - 20.25 kB - 07/19/2017 at 13:53

Download

quattro_ik_pr.ino

This is infact very complex. Developed with the mathematics from Inverse Kinematics Quattro can now do pushups!

ino - 3.60 kB - 07/19/2017 at 13:53

Download

quattro_add_feat.ino

This code is with the added on obstacle avoiding feature. Quattro with the ultrasonic sensor will navigate in an environment without knocking into objects.

ino - 20.63 kB - 07/19/2017 at 13:53

Download

Components

12 × servo motors

1 × arduino nano

1 × a servo shield

1 × 2 mm thick clear acrylic

1 × ultrasonic sensor for obstacle avoiding

Project Logs

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Home run, we did it!

satyaschiavina • 07/24/2017 at 06:51 • 0 comments

Its been a year since we have been working on this project but it's finally complete. Quattro can now walk, see, avoid obstacles and even dance. She might look dangerous but remember she's non-lethal : )

That's it from us!

Ready for testing

satyaschiavina • 07/24/2017 at 06:49 • 1 comment

Today we tested Quattro on a cup, she worked rather well. Although when put on the ground she struggles a bit, I say we give her a bit more power...updates soon.

PS: wiring up this beast is a real mess!

Inverse kinematics

satyaschiavina • 07/24/2017 at 06:47 • 0 comments

A big thanks to our friend Suman Pal who really brought this project to life by developing the maths and then converting it to code.

Robot hardware completed

satyaschiavina • 07/24/2017 at 06:45 • 0 comments

After three months, of failure, after blood sweat and tear , Quattro has finally manifested herself in this Beauty. Very satisfied with the product. What about you guys?

Now the tough bit developing algorithms to make it walk!

Buying a huge number of motors!!!

satyaschiavina • 07/24/2017 at 06:40 • 0 comments

We bought the small servo motors of Amazon which performed rather well.

The star of the show is definitely the Arduino Nano, because of its size and power. I'm off to making this beast!

Robust Design Successful!

satyaschiavina • 07/24/2017 at 06:37 • 0 comments

We started this project in 2016 and after lots of modifications we have finally succeeded in a robust frame ready for laser cutting

Build Instructions

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1

Step 1

Hi guys! Here's a spider robot that we had made for the 2016 science fair which was held at our school. Well, you can't technically call it a "spider robot" as spiders have 8 legs, but we atleast tried to make it look like a spider (or maybe spider like) . Our robot has four legs, so the correct term would be a quadruped. Well guys say hello to "Quattro", a non lethal, arduino quadruped!
Here is an instructable on how we made her, taking you through the building process, getting to the programming and finally admiring the robot come to life once its finally done :) . Watch the video to get an idea of what it will finally look like, the problems we encountered and how we solved it and improved it.
Before going to the next step please note that a laser cutter has been used in the making of this robot. A laser cutter can be avoided if you are very skillful with your hands, as precision is key to completing the project!
2

HOW IT WORKS

The robot has 4 legs, with 3 servo motors in each leg, which give the legs a freedom of three degrees. We use a simple gait to get the robot to walk which is known as the creep gait .
We used a creep gait as its one of the simplest, slowest and yet smoothest of all gaits. At first we just get the robot to walk forward, back, left, and right and then we add cooler features such as obstacle avoiding and Bluetooth control to take it to the next level.
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Parts Needed...
The body:
- 2 mm thick clear acrylic
Bare minimum electronics:
- 12 servo motors (quite a lot )
- arduino nano (any other will do as well)
- a servo shield will surely help (we made one ourselves with some pcb and pin-headers, will explain the process of building the shield in a later step)
- a power supply (5v at 4a will work great, that's what worked for us) we used a simple wall adapter
Extra electronics:
- ultrasonic sensor (for obstacle avoiding)
- hc 05 bluetooth module (for smartphone control)
For the shield:
- pcb (preferably the ones with common lines for ground and power)
- female headers
- male headers
- wire
Tools:
- laser cutter (or skilled hands)
- super-glue
- hot glue