Objective: To build a robot that simulates the walk of a human being. I consider this to be one of the challenging projects I ever worked on and I am very happy to share this work with you.

 

Description: I always wanted to build a robot that simulates the walk of a human being with the parts available around. This robot walks with the help of two legs and the third leg (at the center) just for balancing. Balancing the robot with two legs is very challenging and I tried hard to implement in this project but I could not achieve it. I hope in future I would be able to do this. The legs are built to simulate the movement of the thighs and the knees. The string connected to the toe of the each leg is connected to the tin cap which is attached to the servo motor at the back which moves the knee portion of the leg whenever the tin cap rotates. The thighs are attached to different servos which controls it movement individually and separately from the knee portion. I used a photo sensor which is used to start and stop the robot. It took me around 2 months to complete this project and most of the time I spent in search of the parts and design.

 

How it works: When the 9v battery is inserted the power is on; closing the photo sensor will start the robot motion. The robot starts walking by moving the left and right legs individually. The robot can be stopped by again closing the photo sensor. The video explains better how the robot works.

 

Parts:

BASIC Stamp Microcontroller: 1 $80 from Radio shack

4 Standard servos

Photo sensor – 1 (to stop and start the robot)

Umbrella strings – 2 (to connect the knee to the tin cap)

Tin cap – 2 (for rotating the Umbrella strings)

CD spindle (for balancing the robot)

Old caterpillar toy for the case and legs

Necessary tools for cutting and drilling holes

1 9V battery for the BASIC Stamp

 

Programming Language used:

I used the same BASIC STAMP microcontroller used in my previous project (Convert a DVD case to a robot) and hence the same programming language.  The basic technique used here is to rotate the servo to the correct angle such that the leg movement is achieved accordingly. Most of the time it is done using trial and error method. Here is the source code for this work:

 

' {$STAMP BS2}

' {$PBASIC 2.5}

'Author         : vijay narayan

'Date Created   : 7/29/07

'Date Modified  : 8/28/07

'Purpose: program to simulate a walking robot

 

i VAR Word

time VAR Word

off VAR Byte

cnt VAR Byte

walkCount VAR Byte

 

'Constants for legs and knee

LeftLeg   CON   15

LeftKnee  CON   12

RightLeg  CON   7

RightKnee CON   4

PhotoSensor CON 2

USSensor CON 1

BaseWheel CON 9

 

 off = 1

 cnt = 1

 walkCount = 1

 PULSOUT BaseWheel, 580

 

 'stand still position

 FOR i = 1 TO 10

     PULSOUT LeftLeg,650

     PULSOUT LeftKnee,650

     PULSOUT RightLeg,600

     PULSOUT RightKnee,600

    PAUSE 10

 NEXT

 

DO

 

  DEBUG HOME, "Walkcount outside ", DEC walkCount, CR

  IF walkCount = 3 THEN

      DEBUG HOME, "Walkcount inside ", DEC walkCount, CR

      walkCount = 1

  ENDIF

 

  HIGH PhotoSensor

  RCTIME PhotoSensor,1, time

 

  IF time > 700 THEN

      IF off = 1 THEN

        off = 0

      ELSEIF off = 0 THEN

        off = 1

        cnt = 1

      ENDIF

  ENDIF

 

 'if off =1 then make it stand still

 IF off = 1 THEN

    'stand still position

    IF cnt = 1 THEN

       PULSOUT LeftLeg,650

       PULSOUT LeftKnee,650

       PULSOUT RightLeg,600

       PULSOUT RightKnee,600

       cnt = 0

    ENDIF

ENDIF

 

 'make the robot walk only of the flag = 0

 IF off = 0 THEN

       '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''Left leg movement

    FOR i = 650 TO 900

      PULSOUT LeftLeg,i

      PULSOUT LeftKnee,i  'move up the knee'

    NEXT

 

    ' 'move the knee from back to front

    FOR i = 900 TO 600

      PULSOUT LeftKnee,i

    NEXT

 

    'bring back the leg to straight position

    FOR i = 900 TO 650

      PULSOUT LeftLeg,i

    NEXT

 

    PULSOUT LeftKnee,650

    PULSOUT LeftLeg,650

    'This should bring the right leg to the straight position

 

    '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''Right leg movement

 

    'Move the right leg front

    FOR i = 600 TO 350

      PULSOUT RightLeg,i

    NEXT

 

     'move the knee from back to front

    FOR i = 600 TO 650

      PULSOUT RightKnee,i

    NEXT

 

    PAUSE 100

    'bring back the leg to straight position

    FOR i = 350 TO 600

      PULSOUT RightLeg,i

    NEXT

    PAUSE 100

    PULSOUT RightKnee,580

    PULSOUT RightLeg,580

 

    walkCount = walkCount + 1

  ENDIF

LOOP

 

 

Pictures:

I would like to share the video. I am having trouble attaching the youtube video here hence I am sharing the link.

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKoam7KOu8k

 

Conclusion: This is my second project and I am really proud of this great achievement. I believe this would help people who ever wanted to build a robot that walks. Also I guess this would encourage the beginners who wanted to build robots with the parts available around you. Thanks for your time in reading this and expect to drop your comments.

 

More robots to come!