Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 3 No. 2 Summer 2018 | Page 12

care of the locomotion, and the tail takes
care of stabilization and maneuvering. By
decoupling the purposes, we can scale back
the complicated legs to make the system
much simpler, lighter, more agile, and less
expensive.”
The tail works by exerting forces and
moments on the robot in six degrees of
freedom: forces along the x, y, and z direc-
tions and moments about those directions.
Ben-Tzvi and his students are mapping
the forces and moments generated by the
tail motion in an effort to provide stability
and maneuvering. The tails are flexible,
self-contained and made of the mecha-
nisms that provide the structural backbone
MOMENTUM
SUMMER 2018
of the tail. Actuators and sensors in the
tail joints measure position, velocity, and
acceleration.
“The idea is that by generating different
spatial motions of the tail, we can apply
moments and forces around the base of the
tail that will result in moments and forces
applied to the robot, which will allow it to
change direction or maintain stability.”
So far, the team has developed two pro-
totypes using different design principles.
The tail prototypes are being used in con-
junction with mathematically generated
models of legged robots by joining the tails
with a computer model of the legged robot
and inputting the force of the physical tail
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