International Journal of Robotics and Automation (IJRA)

Vol. 3, No. 2, June 2014, pp. 139~150

ISSN: 2089-4856  139

Optimizing Hexapod Robot Reconfiguration using Hexa-Quad

Transformation

Addie Irawan, Yee Yin Tan

Robotics & Unmanned Research (RUS) group, Faculty Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang

Article Info ABSTRACT

Article history: This paper presents a leg reconfigurable technique to optimize the hexapod
robot reconfiguration flexiblity. A hexapod-to-quadruped (Hexa-Quad)
Received Mar 8, 2014 transformation technique is proposed to optimize hexapod legs on certain
Revised May 3, 2014 situation that need some legs to be disabled as a leg to do other tasks and
Accepted May 19, 2014 operations. This proposed method used the factor of center of body (CoB)
stability in the support polygon and its body shape. The reinitialized leg’s
shoulder method is proposed to ensure the support polygon is balanced and
Keyword: confirmed the CoM nearly or at the center. This method is modeled and
simulated in a real-time based model of hexapod robot with 4-DOF/leg
Center of Mass control architecture. The model is verified in numerical model and presented
Support Polygon using separated 3D simulators.
Traverse-trot gait
Tripod gait
Copyright © 2014 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science.
All rights reserved.

Corresponding Author:
Addie Irawan,
Faculty Electrical & Electronics Engineering,
Universiti Malaysia Pahang,
26600 Pekan, Pahang, Malaysia.
Email: addieirawan@ump.edu.my

1. INTRODUCTION
Multi-legged robot or so called active suspension vehicle (ASV) has significant advantages if
compare to the wheel type robot especially on facing irregular and mountainous terrain. The advantages of
multi-legged or legged robot can be seen obviously on inspired life living form; legged creatures. Raibert in
his book has mentioned that only about half of the earth ‘s landmass is accessible to existing wheeled and
tracked vehicles ,whereas a much larger fraction can be reached by animals on foot[1]. In multi-legged robot
research and development, several studies have been done to achieve good adaptability, function, high
flexibility and extensibility with extreme and unknown terrain. The progress emphasized in all expects and
hierarchy of multi-legged system such as system mechanism, structure design/configuration, software
development/control technique and electronics unit design. In control technique level, reconfiguration
technique is one of the important parts in legged robot control, which is emphasized on recovery action [2]
and multi-tasking. Therefore stability become a main point in this research that involving center of mass
(CoM) of the legged robot and its support polygon. The larger the support polygon developed by the robots
the bigger the probability for the robot to remain upright without overturning when it stops walking at any
moment during the walking period, and this is called statically stable walking or static stability. Static
stability occurs when CoM lies completely within the support polygon and the polygon’s area is greater than
zero, and hence static stability requires at least three points of ground contact [3]. Robot’s CoM represented a
significant aid in maintaining the stability[4] and as additional source of information in identified process and
stability indicator. Moreover, CoM is calculated to provide critical to access rehabilitation success in
pathology detection and in describing gaits[5]. In reconfiguration aspect, the CoM’s of legged robot is will be
reallocated since the changing of in the structure or leg configuration of the robot.

Journal homepage: http://iaesjournal.com/online/index.php/IJRA

140  ISSN: 2089-4856

Therefore in this study, determination on hexapod configuration to quadruped configuration for a

hexapod robot (Hexa-Quad) is proposed. Hexapod is one of the statically stable configurations of multi-
legged robot that has potential to be reconfigured into less than six legs such as quadruped and bipedal
configuration. Transforming hexapod to bipedal configuration is considered as critical configuration for
hexapod unless there have a special design on leg configuration and robot body’s shape itself (other than
common hexapod’s body shapes; square, trapezium, round or hexagon body). The quadruped configuration is
selected since this configuration is in between statically and dynamically stable and suitable for any common
shape of hexapod robot’s body. Static stability assumes the vertical projection of the CoM always remain
inside the support polygon with an adequate stability margin during all phase of movements [6]. On the other
hand, dynamically stable depends on the stability during the robot is moving which demands on active
actuation to maintain the balance and performing faster motion[7]. As part of dynamically stable
configuration, quadruped legged robot configuration also practical on performing locomotion for complex
terrain according to the several practical achievement reported in [8, 9].
Reconfiguration issue become one of the small sections in robotic issue that has potential to be
explored in order to optimize the use of the default mechanism of the robot itself and increased its flexibility.
CONRO from Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory of USC Information Science Institute is one of the
examples of hexapod robot that performing proposed hormone-based distributed control to implement its gait
reconfiguration between caterpillar and spider gait mode[2]. Shen et. al. mentioned that the number of
supported leg must meet the stability criteria according to the number of leg that available for walking used.
It is different to the hybrid wheel-legged robot, namely Hylos is designed and developed by Laboratoire de
Robotique de Paris (LRP), Universit´e de Pierre et Marie Curie, France whereby to optimize both the balance
of traction forces and the tipover stability. A specific trajectory and posture control is designed to overcome
both robot’s locomotion itself and orientation of the main body and sideway wheelbases [10]. On the other
hand, OSCAR from University Lübeck has proposed the organic self-configurable in hexapod robot as its
name implied. The aim of the development is to overcome the malfunction leg(s) and optimizing the overall
energy during locomotion by performing self-amputation [11].
According to the study goal, both hexapod and quadruped robot stabled walking pattern is crucial.
This is a fundamental problem need to be solved for every walking robot in moving operation. The
development of walking pattern of a walking robot is a challenging task because the consideration the degree
of freedom (DoF) with the support polygon is important for the stability of the robot [12]. Yang J.M. et. al in
their studies has considered the analysis of the joint failure based on the manipulator kinematics and gait
patern. Thus proposed the periodic quadruped and hexapod gait to overcome any fault tolerant caused by
joint failure and to maintain the stability of the robot [13]. On the other hands, Tsujita K. et. al has overcome
the timing problem between transverse, rotary, pace, bounce and trot gait pattern for quadruped robot studies
considered the analysis on the suitable gait pattern for the quadruped robot by proposed the adaptive control
[14]. Other effort has been done by proposed the Gait regulation technique to increase the robustness in
multi-legged robot walking pattern. For a single duty of a developing gait pattern, need just ignore the
kinematic mapping and the consideration of keep more legs contact with the surface. Due to the limitation
recirculation speed, the trot and tripod gait pattern can perform signification faster than other[15]. According
to the lift and release probabilistic events [3] for each leg of legged robot, tripod pattern for hexapod robot is
less and producing faster movement. Quadruped robot on the other hand having between dynamic and static
stability range which is required good combination of suitable walking pattern. Therefore, in this article, the
combination of traverse and trot walking pattern has been proposed for the robot model in quadruped mode.
The proposed Hexa-Quad transformation for hexapod robot is designed with two different forms
namely center legs disable (CLD) and side legs disable (SLD). The form is decided based on common
application for the hexapod robot such as converting legs to the free manipulators or disabling the leg for
energy saving. The proposed transformation technique is created by inspired from the CoM in support
polygon and leg shoulder angle symmetrical concept proposed previous in [16]. The proposed
transformation, tripod pattern and traverse-trot pattern are modeled in a hexapod robot real-time model with 4
DoF leg configurations.

2. HEXA-QUAD TRANSFORMATION TECHNIQUES METHOD

Most of the proposed transformation techniques for multi-legged walking robot are due to the specific
configuration of the robot itself. In this study, the transformation is proposed for general hexapod robot configuration
with any number of DOF legs. The proposed Hexa-Quad transformation technique is designed by considering the support
polygon or stability area of the robot as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2. The larger the support polygon developed by
the robots the bigger the probability for the robot to remain upright without overturning when it stops walking at any
moment during walking period, and this is called statically stable walking or static stability [3].

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IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708  141

z
Body in
stable

range

x
0
0
y

(a)

z
Body in
stable

range

x
0
0
y

(b)

Figure 1. The proposed forms of Hexa-Quad transformation; (a) CLD form, (b) SLD form.

Therefore in proposed Hexa-Quad transformation technique, two forms of transformation are

proposed by considering the support polygon and CoM as shown in Figure 1. CLD is realized by lifting up
two center legs as in sit down mode. This form is not critical to control if compare to the SLD (Figure 1(b))
that required a proper initial standing position for other legs. Therefore, this proposed technique introduced
separated calculation for CLD and SLD as shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3 respectively.
As shown in Figure 2, the CoM is at the center of the body (CoB) of the robot and the support
polygon is followed by the shape of the standing legs. The shape of support polygon is depends on the
number of touching leg on the ground (red dotted line) as shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3. Thus the new
maximum extended angle of shoulder for each supporting legs (enabled legs) (  a ) after transformation can
be determined by using is the length ( l ) and width ( w ) of the robot body as follows;

 l  1  xo 
 a  0.5 tan 1  k  |  no | 0.5 tan  k   |  no | (1)
 w  yo 

where x0 is the vertical length from the center of the robot body while y0 is the horizontal length from the
center of the body and  n is an initial value for each shoulder. In addition, k is tuning parameters in order
o

to achieve ls  ws to ensure CoM near the center of support polygon.

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142  ISSN: 2089-4856

Support
Polygon
a c
Leg1 Leg4

Leg2 Leg5

b d

Leg3 Leg6

CoM

Figure 2. Shoulder angle determination for CLD transformation mode.

Leg1 Leg4

Leg2 c
Leg5
a

b d

Leg3 Leg6

Support CoM
Polygon

Figure 3. Shoulder angle determination for SLD transformation mode.

This rule is applied with reference to the shoulder-based coordination system (SCS) and CoB-based
symmetrical approach [16]. Moreover, the rule is very important for the proposed SLD form mode which is
side legs are disabled from walking used. The other legs need to be reinitialized its shoulder’s angle using
Eq.1. As shown in Figure 3, example situation of two side legs (leg 1 and leg 4) is disabled and other four
legs (leg 2,3,5 and 6) is reinitialized. The full transformation sequence of proposed Hexa-Quad is presented
as finite state machine (FSM) as shown in Figure 4.
Robot body shape also the important factor that need to be considered on selecting proposed Hexa-
Quad transformation form. Commonly, for default hexapod robot, the body design will considered the stable
position for the leg to move and standing to ensure the CoM always at center of its support polygon. As
shown in Figure 5, there are three different common shape of hexapod robot’s body that possible to be

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IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708  143

designed. Moreover the figure also shows that each shape has different support polygon size, ls and ws ,
with different body size, l and w . Figure 5(a) and 5(b) shows the l  w and w  l makes SLD method
almost instable to be applied unless the support polygon size is tuned ls  ws to better  a value such as
Figure 3. It is same to the round body shape with the size l  w . Therefore it makes CLD method most
likely suitable transformation form for common shape of hexapod robot such as existed established hexapod
robots reported in [17, 18].

To Hexapod From Hexapod

Mode Mode

Transformation
Mode

Reinitialized Reinitialized
side legs side legs
(Leg 1,3,4,6) (Leg
2,5,1/3,4/6)

Side Legs (leg

Center Legs 1 & 4 or leg 3
(leg 2 & 5) & 6) disabled
disabled
Side Legs (leg
Center Legs 1 & 4 or leg 3
(leg 2 & 5) Quadruped & 6) released
Released Walking Mode

Figure 4. FSM of proposed Hexa-Quad transformation for hexapod robot model.

Support /
Polygon

ls
CoB\CoM CoB\CoM
CoB\CoM

ws
(a) (b) (c)

Figure 5. Fundamental shape for hexapod robot, (a)hexagon body shape, (b) Rectangular body shape, (c)
Round body shape.

3. WALKING PATTERN AND SHOULDER-BASED COORDINATION SYSTEM

The sequences of the legs for quadruped and hexapod walking are presented in finite state machine
(FSM) as shown in Figure 6. On hexapod configuration or hexapod mode as shown in Figure 6(a), tripod
walking gait pattern is used since it performs fastest walking with minimum area of support polygon in
hexapod robot stability. On the other hand, traverse-trot gait pattern is selected for quadruped mode as shown

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144  ISSN: 2089-4856

in Figure 6(b). This proposed quadruped mode gait pattern performing maximum two legs at a time during
locomotion which is the fastest for this configuration. Furthermore transverse-trot gait patterns is used and
designed with SCS kinematics reference as shown in Figure 7 since both hexapod and quadruped
configuration modes are applied in the same hexapod robot model. In addition the force effective trajectory
motion as shown in Figure 8 [19] is applied for both walking modes, thus the support phase and swing phase
equations are generalized as expressed as Eq. 2 and Eq.3. Both positions including vertical leg position ( z )
is determined differently in each support and swing phase by using those equations respectively.

To quadruped
walking Not
Transformed sequences Transformed

Transformation state
(HexaQuad) Leg 2,4,6 : Support
Shoulder angles Phase
reinitialized Leg 1,3,5: Swing
Phase
All legs:
No Transient
Phase
STOP:
All legs on
Yes ground
Leg 2,4,6: Support
Phase
Leg 1,3,5: Swing
Phase
(a)

From Hexapod To Hexapod Mode

Mode Leg 3,4,6: Support
Phase
Transformation State Leg 1: Swing Phase
(Hexa→Quad) All Legs:
Shoulder angles
Transient Phase
reinitialized

All Legs: Leg 1,3,4: Support Phase

Transient Phase Leg 6: Swing Phase
All Legs:
On the ground

All Legs:
Transient Phase
Leg 1,3,4: Support Phase
Leg 6: Swing Phase No

Yes Leg 3,4: Support Phase

Leg 1,6: Swing Phase
Leg 3,4,6:
Support
All Legs: Phase
Transient Phase Leg 1: Swing All Legs:
Phase Transient Phase

(b)

Figure 6. FSM for (a) tripod gait pattern and (b) traverse-trot gait pattern in hexapod robot model with Hexa-
Quad transformation.

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IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708  145

(Support Phase – Step and push on the ground) 0  t  Tc

2
 2t 1
So  4 t  
xsn (t )  x0n    sin    cos  an
4 Tc 2  Tc  
S  2t 1  4 t  
ysn (t )  y0n  o  

sin    sin  an
4  Tc 2  Tc  
zsn (t )  z0n
(2)
(Swing Phase) 0  t  Tc
2
S   2  
xsn (t )  x0n  o 1  cos  t   cos  an
2   Tc  

S   2  
ysn (t )  y0n  o 1  cos  t   sin  an (3)
2   Tc  

 2 
zsn (t )  z0n  H 0 sin  t
 Tc 

where,
Tc = walking cycle time (s),
t = update time (real-time) (s),
tex = additional period for applying extra force (s),
S 0 = distance of foot placement for one cycle (m), and
H 0 = height of leg lift from the initial position (m).

2
L1

Y
1 L2

3
X

L4 L3 
4

Figure 7. SCS trajectory kinematics motion for a 4-DOF leg of hexapod robot model with proposed Hexa-
Quad transformation

Optimizing Hexapod Robot Reconfiguration using Hexa-Quad Transformation (Addie Irawan)

 146  ISSN: 2089-4856

Z-Axis (m)

Shoulder point

(1)
FIRST-phase
Sh
MOVE-phase (k)
(4)
(2) Sensing Point

(3)

Y-Axis (m)

Figure 8. A leg motion shape used in hexapod robot model with proposed Hexa-Quad transformation

4. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

Several simulations running have been setup and run to analyze the potential of the proposed
method to be implemented in the real-time system. The first simulation in done on the proposed CLD method
by simulating the real-time hexapod robot model with the 3D model that designed separately [20] as shown
in Figure 9. Figure 9 shows the center legs (Leg 2 and 5) are disabled after robot stop walking in hexapod
mode. In this case of transformation, side legs become main legs and ready for quadruped mode walking. The
initial angle of each main leg for quadruped mode doesn’t change much due to the calculation using Eq.1.
It is different to the SLD transformation whereby certain steps of initialization needs to be done on
the remained legs that will be used in quadruped mode walking. As shown in Figure 10, center legs (Legs 2
and 5) and side legs are reinitialized (Figure 10(b) and (c)) to appropriate angle before another side legs (Leg
1 and 4) flipped to the front and disabled (Figure 10(d)).

(a) (b)
Figure 9. 3D model simulation result for CLD transformation, (a) hexapod walking stop, (b) center legs
disabled

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IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708  147

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 10. 3D model1 simulation result for SLD transformation, (a) hexapod walking stop, (b) center legs
shoulder angle reinitialized, (c) side legs shoulder angle reinitialized, (d) target legs disabled.

This step is important to make sure robot is in stable range and overturning is avoided. Since the
hexapod model with l  w , CLD is used to simulate hexapod mode to quadruped mode transformation. As
shown in Figure 11, full walking from hexapod mode to quadruped mode is presented. The tripod walking is
presented from Figure 11(a) to 11(b) and it stop for CLD transformation as shown in Figure 11(c). The robot
continued walking in quadruped mode using proposed traverse-trot gait pattern from Figure 11(d) to Figure
11(f) in reverse path. As shown in Figure 11(c) center legs are disabled and all remaining leg done the
traverse-trot walking gait pattern as shown detail in Figure 12 via foot motion sample results (z-axis). As
shown in Figure 12(a), the foot motion started different support phase length after changing mode from
hexapod mode to quadruped mode. Moreover for center represented by Leg 5 sample results in Figure 12(b)
shows that foot motion is identically retain in initial position (sit down mode). On the other hand, body mass
coordination (BMC) in Figure 13 shows stable line for both walking modes although in quadruped mode the
path of walking is reversing hexapod robot.

1
3D model simulator is courtesy of Nonami Lab, Chiba University, Japan

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148  ISSN: 2089-4856

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)
Figure 11. 3D model simulation results for full walking from hexapod mode to quadruped mode with
proposed CLD Hexa-Quad transformation, (a) tripod cycle 1, (b) tripod cycle 2, (c) CLD transformation, (d)
traverse cycle 1, (e) traverse cycle 2 and (f) trot cycle.

0 0
Z-Axis Ref[m] Z-Axis Ref[m]
-0.2 Z-Axis Out[m] -0.2 Z-Axis Out[m]
Hexapod
Sb range Mode Sb range
-0.4 -0.4
Quadruped
-0.6 Mode
-0.6
Hexapod
-0.8 Mode Swing Phase
-0.8
Support Phase
-1 -1
Leg disabled Quadruped
-1.2 -1.2 Mode

-1.4 -1.4
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time[s] Time[s]
(a) (b)
Figure 12. Position of the foot point on the z axis: (a) sample of leg 1, (b) sample of leg 5.

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 IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708  149

Right side walking

1.5 (Quadruped Mode)
Z Coordination [m]

1
Left side walking
(Hexapod Mode)
Stand up
0.5

0
4
2 1
-15 0.5
x 10 0 0
-0.5
Y Coordination [m] -2 -1
X Coordination [m]

Figure 13. BMC results for hexapod mode to quadruped walking

5. CONCLUSION
The performance of both proposed Hex-Quad transformation methods have been presented. Through
the series of simulations, it was shown that the proposed CLD method is suitable for common hexapod robot
body with l  w or w  l dimension unless the body is flexible enough to balance the disabled legs
postion after transformation if SLD is applied. Therefore on the next step progress, the research and
development will be focused on enhancing the flexibility of the robot body to make sure hexapod body
always at l  w so that SLD is stable to be used.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The work is supported by the Ministry of Education Malaysia under the Research Acculturation
Collaboration Effort (Race) and partially supported under the Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) Research
Grant mentoring by Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Also we would like to thanks to my former supervisor
Prof. Kenzo Nonami for allowing us to use one of his 3D simulator as part of our verification platform.

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BIOGRAPHIES OF AUTHORS

Addie Irawan is a Senior Lecturer and Head of Programme (Control & Instrumentation) in
Faculty of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, University Malaysia Pahang, Pahang, Malaysia.
He majored in Robotics and Motion Control, and is currently lead the Robotics and Unmanned
Systems (RUS) Group, and Instrumentations and Control Engineering Cluster. He received a
Doctor of Engineering degree in Artificial Systems Science (System Control and Robotics) from
Chiba University, Japan in 2012. Previously, he received a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in
Electric and Electronic Engineering (Computer) in 2002 and a Master of Science (Electric and
Electronic Engineering) with a major in Computer Communication in 2005 from the University
Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia. He worked as a researcher at the Standard and
Research Institute, Malaysia (SIRIM) from 2004 to 2005. He also a Senior member of IEEE and
member of IEEE-RAS and IEEE-SMC.

Yee Yin Tan is currently a Master of Engineering (Electronics) student under Faculty of
Electrical and Electronics Engineering in University Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia. She received
her Bachelor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (Power System) degree in year 2013.

IJRA Vol. 3, No. 2, June 2014 : 139 – 150