This paper presents the main characteristics of a hexapod robot designed and manufactured by the Centre for Automation and Robotics (CAR) CSIC-UPM, Spain. The main objective of this hexapod walking robot is carry out tasks for localisation of anti-personnel mines, using a scanning manipulator on-board with a metal detector installed on the tool centre point. Previous works done by other hexapod robot, SILO6 (also designed and manufactured by CAR, CSIC-UPM), are considered in this paper. The SILO6 robot of DYLEMA project has been designed specifically in order to carry out humanitarian demining tasks, and it has been tested with excellent results. The energy consumption of the hexapod robot which is described in this article is relatively low because its legs are gravitationally decoupled. Besides, it can support high payload up to about 300 kg. Finally, is introduced the concept of the hexapod robot reconfigured.

The authors acknowledge funding from the European Commission under 7th Framework Programme (TIRAMISU Grant Agreement Nº 284747) and partial funding under Robocity2030-III-CM, S2013/MIT-2748. Dr. Héctor Montes also acknowledges support from Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá.

28-29 January 2015. Escola Naval da Marinha Portuguesa, Lisboa (Portugal). 8th IARP WS RISE’2015

Peer reviewed