Experimental Verification of the Oscillating Paddling Gait for an ePaddle-EGM Amphibious Locomotion Mechanism

An eccentric paddle locomotion mechanism based on the epicyclic gear mechanism (ePaddle-EGM), which was proposed to enhance the mobility of amphibious robots in multiterrain tasks, can perform various terrestrial and aquatic gaits. Two of the feasible aquatic gaits are the rotational paddling gait and the oscillating paddling gait. The former one has been studied in our previous work, and a capacity of generating vectored thrust has been found. In this letter, we focus on the oscillating paddling gait by measuring the generated thrusts of the gait on an ePaddle-EGM prototype module. Experimental results verify that the oscillating paddling gait can generate vectored thrust by changing the location of the paddle shaft as well. Furthermore, we compare the oscillating paddling gait with the rotational paddling gait at the vectored thrusting property, magnitude of the thrust, and the gait efficiency.

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