The Robot of Theseus: A modular robotic testbed for legged locomotion
Karthik Urs, Jessica Carlson, Aditya Srinivas Manohar, Michael Rakowiecki, Abdulhadi Alkayyali, John E. Saunders, Faris Tulbah, Talia Y. Moore

TL;DR
The paper introduces TROT, a low-cost, modular quadrupedal robot designed for biomechanical research, customizable to various animal morphologies, and suitable for testing hypotheses and developing control strategies.
Contribution
It presents a versatile, affordable, open-source robotic platform with modular limbs that can mimic diverse animal morphologies for biomechanical experiments.
Findings
TROT costs approximately $4000 to build.
It can replicate a wide range of animal limb structures.
The platform supports user-defined gaits and morphology modifications.
Abstract
Robotic models are useful for independently varying specific features, but most quadrupedal robots differ so greatly from animal morphologies that they have minimal biomechanical relevance. Commercially available quadrupedal robots are also prohibitively expensive for biological research programs and difficult to customize. Here, we present a low-cost quadrupedal robot with modular legs that can match a wide range of animal morphologies for biomechanical hypothesis testing. The Robot Of Theseus (TROT) costs approximately $4000 to build out of 3D printed parts and standard off-the-shelf supplies. Each limb consists of 2 or 3 rigid links; the proximal joint can be rotated to become a knee or elbow. Telescoping mechanisms vary the length of each limb link. The open-source software accommodates user-defined gaits and morphology changes. Effective leg length, or crouch, is determined by the…
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 · Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence · Biomimetic flight and propulsion mechanisms
