Bio-Inspired Squirrel Robot

Hardware & Electronics | Team | 2019

I built this robot with two friends as part of our bio-inspired robotics elective (ENME489L). The gait and physiology of the robot was heavily inspired by squirrels. We were able to implement an under-actuated galloping gait, strategically weighting the robot, and designing and 3d-printing spring-loaded legs to passively enable this gait with only 3 control parameters (achieved through two pairs of three servo motors for each side of the squirrel bot).

I worked on the design of the system, designing and building the electronics, CAD and 3d-printing of the body components, and writing the control code. You can see code and materials here.

Our more-spidery-than-squirrely initial prototype. Modular design allowed us to test basic gait control and robot dynamics before honing in on our final design.

Our finished squirrel bot!