A Mass Optimisation Study of the Lunar Zebro Chassis

A prototype lunar rover is in development by students of the TU Delft since 2017. It is a nanorover based on the terrestrial ZeBRo design, now named the Lunar Zebro. The Lunar Zebro is a prototype design as a proof of concept for nanorover capabilities. With a chassis of 200 by 140 by 60 millimeters, fitting on a sheet of A5 paper, the Lunar...

Modelling the hybrid dynamics of a hexapedal robot: Predicting the Zebro's path using an identified leg-ground slippage model

Legged locomotion is a discrete event system (DES) due to the ever changing contact states of each leg. As such, it requires a nonlinear modelling method to predict the trajectory of a legged robot. One such robot has been focused on throughout this thesis; the six legged "Zebro''. With its half-circular legs, the Zebro is well suited for...

Autonomous Exploration by Cooperative Robots

Imagine being lost in a desert with a bunch of friends, all of a sudden. Survival will be difficult. You will have mirages, distrust among friends and no means to leave landmarks on the sand. Unable to locate yourself, you will have no means to contact people with maps. The best you can do in such a situation is to stay together in the vicinity...

Design of the locomotion subsystem for the Lunar Zebro: A design and implementation to ensure that Zebro can thrive on the moon

This report covers the development of the Locomotion system for the Lunar Zebro that is responsible for the positioning control of the six legs and the operating of the solar panel. It covers the initial problem analysis, requirement discovery, conceptual design, part identification for implementation, implementation and the first tests, their...

Adaptive Gait Switching Control Structure using Max Plus in Legged Locomotion

The ZeBRo (Dutch abbreviation: Zesbenige Robot, six-legged robot), is a walking robot designed by the TU Delft, with its foundations on the RHex. The current version of the ZeBRo project, the DeciZebro, is made for the research to swarming in robotics, and is about the size of an A4-paper. <br/>To counter these shortcomings of CPG (a method to...

Swarm Behaviour for the Zebro Robot

Nature has found many interesting solutions to similar problems that we face with robots. Swarming in robotics is an interesting field to reduce cost and risk, and provide a scalable solution to certain problems. The Zebro Project of the TU Delft performs research in the field of swarm robotics using the six legged robot, called a Zebro. Swarm...

Turning of a Legged Robot via a Switching Max-Plus Linear System: Simulation and Implementation

Legged locomotion is an example of a discrete event system (DES) with only synchronization and no concurrency. This particular kind of DES can be framed in max-plus algebra, which consists of maximization and addition as its basic operations. Utilizing the max-plus operations between matrices, max-plus linear (MPL) system is constructed.<br/><br...

Environment Observation Module for the Deci Zebro: Obstacle and Motion Detection using a Laser Rangefinder and Optical Flow

A Camera Submodule for the Environment Observation Module for a Zebro robot was designed. It is able to collect and process data about obstacles on a Raspberry Pi and send this to the main processor of the Environment Observation module using UART. <br/>The two main functions that were implemented are a laser rangefinder based on triangulation...

Safety and Sensing: submodule of the Environment Observation Module

This bachelor thesis is about the design of the Safety and Sensing module, which is part of the Environment Observation Module for Deci Zebro robots. This Environment Observation Module is developed at the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) of Delft University of Technology. Zebro robots were not able to...

Mobile robot swarming using radio signal strength measurements and dead-reckoning

The mobile robots considered in this thesis are six legged "Zebro" robots. These mobile robots will use Radio Signal Strength (RSS) measurements to determine the distances towards other mobile robots and radio beacons placed in the surroundings. A combination of distance measurements and dead-reckoning is used to perform a localization of the...

Projectteam Zebro onboard navigation system: Part 1

This document describes the design process towards a functional Onboard Navigation System board, and the onboard communication with other modules in the Zebro Explorer. Furthermore the design process of the communication outside the Zebro consisting of a graphical user interface and the wireless communication is described.

Zebro Drive System

Dit document beschrijft de ontwerpkeuzes die gemaakt zijn bij het ontwerpen van het systeem dat zorgt voor de voortbeweging van de Zebro. De 'Zebro Explorer' is een robot die gemaakt wordt om mee te doen aan de European Rover Challenge. Voor deze wedstrijd dient een Mars rover equivalent gebouwd te worden die verschillende taken kan uitvoeren,...

Zebro Onboard Navigation System (ONS)

Fundamentals For An Autonomous Zebro Swarm

In this thesis, a swarm is defined as:<br/>”A swarm is a large number of homogenous, unsophisticated agents that interact locally<br/>among themselves and their environment, without any central control or management to<br/>yield a global behaviour to emerge.”<br/>The bigger perspective is to have the units within a swarm operate for a...

Feedback mechanisms in Switching Max-Plus Linear systems

The class of Discrete Event Systems (DES) are systems of which the dynamics consist of the occurrences of discrete events in the time domain. Typical examples of DES from everyday life are transport systems , production facilities or communication systems. Recently legged locomotion has been adressed from the point of view of DES. Here, the...