CLOVER Robot: A Minimally Actuated Jumping Robotic Platform for Space Exploration
Alejandro Macario-Rojas, Ben Parslew, Andrew Weightman, and Katharine, L. Smith

TL;DR
This paper introduces CLOVER, a minimally actuated jumping robot for space exploration, utilizing a Sarrus-style linkage to reduce mechanical complexity and improve reliability, demonstrated with promising energy efficiency and potential for further development.
Contribution
The paper presents a novel minimally actuated jumping robot design using a Sarrus linkage, reducing mechanical failure modes for space exploration applications.
Findings
Achieved 63% energy conversion efficiency in jumps
Demonstrated the feasibility of minimal actuation for space robots
Potential for optimized and directional jumping capabilities
Abstract
Robots have been critical instruments to space exploration by providing access to environments beyond human limitations. Jumping robot concepts are attractive solutions to negotiate complex terrain. However, among the engineering challenges to overcome to enable jumping robot concepts for sustained operation, reduction of mechanical failure modes is one of the most fundamental. This study set out to develop a jumping robot with focus on minimal actuation for reduced mechanism maintenance. We present the synthesis of a Sarrus-style linkage to constraint the system to a single translational degree of freedom without the use of typical synchronising gears. We delimit the present research to vertical solid jumps to assess the performance of the fundamental main-drive linkage. A laboratory demonstrator assists the transfer of theoretical concepts and approaches. The laboratory demonstrator…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsRobotic Locomotion and Control · Prosthetics and Rehabilitation Robotics · Biomedical and Engineering Education
