Scout II with Compliant Legs

A larger version of SCOUT I, appropriately called SCOUT II, has been designed and constructed at ARL by Robert Battaglia. Its control is currently under study. The larger size of the new robot will allow it to negotiate full size stairs and also carry a payload. SCOUT II is fully autonomous having on board power, computing and sensing. Other features include an on board pan-tilt camera system and laser sensors.

Though the primary mode of operation is similar to that of Scout I (i.e. four legs each with one degree of freedom), Scout II is also designed to incorporate springs on each of the legs thus giving each leg one extra unactuated degree of freedom. This has made compliant walking and bounding possible. The addition of passive knees to the legs have also made trotting possible.

Simulations have shown that Scout II will be capable of climbing stairs with a rise of up to 20 cm and a depth of 25 cm and is capable of attaining speeds of up to 1.5 m/s (5.4 km/h) on flat ground.

Scout is being developed under one of the IRIS 3 projects in collaboration with various industrial partners. Because of its reduced complexity, it is believed SCOUT II will find a number of real life applications in sectors including forestry, surveillance, tactical/security (armament disposal, hazardous material transport), and entertainment.
 

• Scout II Pictures Gallery
• Quadruped Compliant Walking
• Quadruped Compliant Running
• Quadruped Trotting with Passive Knees
• Other Behaviours


Market Studies
As part of our ongoing development efforts we have performed a number of market studies to determine the feasibility of certain off the shelf technologies for our robots. We have summarized the findings from these studies for reference purposes.

• Wireless Ethernet (HTML) (PDF)
• Laser Range Sensors (HTML) (PDF)
• Inclinometers (HTML) (PDF)
• Gyroscopes (HTML) (PDF)