{"id":152128,"date":"2022-12-07T21:29:31","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T03:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/a-transformable-robot-with-an-omnidirectional-wheel-leg"},"modified":"2022-12-07T21:29:31","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T03:29:31","slug":"a-transformable-robot-with-an-omnidirectional-wheel-leg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/a-transformable-robot-with-an-omnidirectional-wheel-leg","title":{"rendered":"A transformable robot with an omnidirectional wheel-leg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pCAHxhy_seQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute recently created OmniWheg, a robotic system that can adapt its configuration while navigating its surrounding environment, seamlessly changing from a wheeled to a legged robot. This robot, introduced in an IEEE IROS 2022 paper, pre-published on <i>arXiv<\/i>, is based on an updated version of the so-called \u201cwhegs,\u201d a series of mechanisms design to transform a robot\u2019s wheels or wings into legs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuadruped and biped robots have been growing in popularity, and the reason for that might be the search for \u2018anthropomorphization\u2019 that the general audience commonly engages in,\u201d Prof. Andre Rosendo, one of the researchers who developed the robot, told TechXplore. \u201cWhile \u2018being capable of going everywhere we go\u2019 sounds like an exciting appeal, the energetic cost of legs is very high. We humans have legs because that is what evolution gave us, but we wouldn\u2019t dare to create a \u2018legged car,\u2019 as we know that this ride wouldn\u2019t be as comfortable or energy efficient as a wheeled car ride.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The key idea behind the recent work by Rosendo and his colleagues is that while legs make robots more relatable, giving them a human-or animal-like quality, they are not always the optimal solution to ensure that robots complete tasks quickly and efficiently. Instead of developing a robot with a single <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/locomotion\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">locomotion<\/a> mechanism, the team thus set out to create a system that can switch between different mechanisms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute recently created OmniWheg, a robotic system that can adapt its configuration while navigating its surrounding environment, seamlessly changing from a wheeled to a legged robot. This robot, introduced in an IEEE IROS 2022 paper, pre-published on arXiv, is based on an updated version of the so-called \u201cwhegs,\u201d a series of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robotics-ai","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}