Development of the quadruped walking robot, TITAN-IX — mechanical design concept and application for the humanitarian de-mining robot

This paper proposes a quadruped walking robot that has high performance as a working machine. This robot is needed for various tasks controlled by tele-operation, especially for humanitarian mine detection and removal. Since there are numerous personnel landmines that are still in place from many wars, it is desirable to provide a safe and inexpensive tool that civilians can use to remove those mines. The authors have been working on the concept of the humanitarian demining robot systems for 4 years and have performed basic experiments with the first prototype VK-I using the modified quadruped walking robot, TITAN-VIII. After those experiments, it was possible to refine some concepts and now the new robot has a tool (end-effector) changing system on its back, so that by utilizing the legs as manipulation arms and connecting various tools to the foot, it can perform mine detection and removal tasks. Toaccomplish these tasks, we developed various end-effectors that can be attached to the working leg. In this paper we will discuss the mechanical design of the new walking robot called TITAN-IX to be applied to the new system VK-II.