Design and Kinematics Analysis of Propulsion Mechanism of Biped Robot Running on Water

A biped robot is designed to simulate the water running function of the basilisk lizard. The propulsion mechanism and the control system of the robot are studied. Based on the water running process of the lizard, the changed Watt-I planar linkages are developed to provide the lifting and propulsion forces to run on water. On the basis of the movement equations of the four-bar mechanism and the coordinate transformation equations, the double bar Assur Group movement trajectories of the linkages are deduced to simulate the foot trajectories of the lizard. According to the kinematics principle of the planar four-bar linkage, we have studied the kinematics parameters of the Watt-I linkage, which are the basis of the manufacturing of the prototype. The real prototype of the robot is manufactured to test its function of water running. The lifting and propulsion force generated by the mechanism is similar with the basilisk lizard, whose value is about 1.3N. The experiment results show that the propulsion mechanism can satisfy the requirement of biped robot running on water.