Development of an 8DOF quadruped robot and implementation of Inverse Kinematics using Denavit-Hartenberg convention

Quadruped robots can mimic animal walking gait and they have certain advantages like walking on terrain and extremely rough surfaces. Obstacles can impede the movement of wheeled vehicles, where a quadruped can adapt to avoid obstacles by adjusting its height. A quadruped robot is designed and developed for in this paper, which could be controlled by the Android operating system. The Inverse Kinematics Solutions are derived for the developed structure using Denavit-Hartenberg convention and using those solutions the movements are simulated using a custom-made 3D software. An Android application is developed, which is able to control the robot using Bluetooth. The robot currently has following six different movements: front, back, left, right walking, clockwise and anti-clockwise rotation. The robot uses the ultrasound sensor to detect any obstacle closer than 300 cm (maximum) and if an impediment appears, the robot will automatically move parallel to the obstacle until it is avoided. Currently, it can move at a speed of 15.5 cm/s (approximately). To complete a full rotation of 360°, it takes 6 seconds. It can be used to develop and implement any autonomous path-planning algorithm.