A multiple monopedal robots system for universal transportation

This paper deals with a new object transportation scheme performed by a herd of autonomous monopedal robots. The system is named as ldquoUniversal Unipods,rdquo in which each robot is attached on a load to be transported and works as if it were one of the legs of a large multipedal robot. The system is designed not only for generality of application but also for easiness of operation. The authors show its concept and verify its validity by computer simulations that employs ODE for physical computation. They are also developing experimental robots in real, whose basic design is described in this paper.