A simulation-based design of extraterrestrial six-legged robot system

The advanced simulation technology with the rapid growth of computing power leads many new approaches towards design of robot systems. In the typical top-down design of a robot system, the design of the lower phase would be limited by the design from the higher phase. Moreover, it is difficult to well-design the higher phase in predicting problems of the lower phase. Such problems can be effectively improved in the simulation-based system design. All design phases can be done simultaneously with the suitable simulation environment where the hardware and software properties can be flexibly selected and changed. In this paper, a simulation-based design approach of an extraterrestrial six-legged robot (named SpaceClimber) is presented. The highlevel system properties such as fitness functions, energy-efficient morphology and intelligent locomotions are designed in the realtime simulation. The low-level system properties such as joint motor, robot kinematics and dynamical control properties are designed in the precise simulation based on ADAMS/VIEW and MATLAB/SIMULINK.