Motion characteristic evaluation of an amphibious spherical robot

This paper used three on-land locomotion gaits and underwater swim for an amphibious spherical robot, which is controlled using a closed-loop method. The aim of varying the on-land gaits and underwater swim was to improve the motion performance and stability of robot. To control the angle of joint, the displacement and depth of robot, a PID method was used to control the robot. Adams and MATLAB/SIMULINK were used to set the control parameters; simulation results are presented for the three on-land locomotion gaits and underwater swim, in terms of the motion performance, stability, and velocity of the robot. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed methods was demonstrated by showing that the on-land and underwater horizontal motion was stable.