This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. Abstract Through their ability to navigate and perform tasks in unstructured environments, robots have made their way into applications like farming, earth moving, waste clean-up and exploration.
All mobile robots use locomotion that generates traction, negotiates terrain and carries payload.
Because locomotion is the physical interface between a robot and its environment, it is the means by which it reacts to gravitational, inertial and work loads. Despite its significance, locomotion design and its implications to robotic function have not been addressed. In fact, with the exception of a handful of case studies, the issue of how to synthesize robotic locomotion configurations remains a topic of ad hoc speculation and is commonly pursued in a way that lacks rationalization. This thesis focuses on the configuration of wheeled robotic locomotion through the formulation and systematic evaluation of analytical expressions called configuration equations. Solutions to the configuration equations are obtained in parametric form to allow for comprehensive characterization of variant locomotion concepts as opposed to searching for point designs.