Dynamic Hybrid Whole-Body Locomotion for Wheeled Legged Robots

Currently, legged robots are being utilised increasingly to traverse difficult terrain and perform tasks that conventional wheeled robots are not capable of. However, wheeled robots have many advantages that legged robots have yet to take advantage of such as movement having low energy consumption on flat surfaces. Wheeled legged hybrid robots are a new milestone in which robots are able to utilise the advantages of both forms of locomotion simultaneously. This research aims to exploit deep reinforcement learning (DRL) on a hybrid robot to maximise its whole-body motion abilities. For instance, allowing a quadrupedal wheeled robot to stand up as a bipedal robot. In this form, the robot will be able to use its front feet to pick up objects and transport them efficiently across both flat and complex terrain. Due to the combination of both wheels and legs, the robot's locomotion will be extremely agile and smooth allowing for seamless motion when traversing complex terrains and human-made environments. In addition, the transformation into a bipedal wheeled legged robot will allow the robot to transport and place objects. Potential applications of such an autonomous hybrid robot include construction, exploration, and inspection in complex scenarios.