pic: My wheel/leg design

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

Wait would it still have both leg and wheel motion? If you can, add a picture of the design. Thanks.

It's no design in particular. It's just an easier way of going about it. So no picture. Just imagine you have some sort of walking robot already. At the very end of each leg you put a wheel-motor assembly instead of a little rubber foot or what have you. Voila, a leg with a wheel on it.

It's not at all elegant, of course. But if you don't need a central engine driving the wheels, then it's a lot easier than the mass of U-joints, flexible shafts, or telescoping shafts you'd probably need otherwise. As a side note, if you're going to scale this up then at some point it becomes more efficient to use hydraulic motors to drive the wheels instead of electric ones. Though I'm not informed on the flexibility of high pressure hydraulic lines.