HEDRA: A Bio-Inspired Modular Tensegrity Robot With Polyhedral Parallel Modules

There is a surge of research interest in the field of tensegrity robotics. Robots developed under this paradigm provide many advantages and have distinguishing features in terms of structural compliance, dexterity, safety, and weight reduction. This paper proposes a new robotic mechanism based on tensegrity ('tension-integrity') robots and reconfigurable modular robots. The specific actuation schemes for this tensegrity robot with multiple degrees of freedom are presented. This article describes an easy-to-assemble 350 mm tensegrity-based robot prototype by stacking a series of rigid polyhedrons linked with tensegrity joints that have no direct rigid contact with each other. The functionality of the proposed robot is validated by the experimental results by integrating the polyhedral parallel structure as its skeleton and series of tensegrity joints. The reachable workspace of the proposed manipulator was determined and the range of motion analysis was performed. The pilot evaluation demonstrated three working phases including axial twist, compression and bending motion of the presented design. The large bending angle and deployability shown in the tests proved the functionality of the lightweight tensegrity robot.