Project Shelob
Project Shelob is a hexapod robot that uses ROS and Python to solve complex navigation problems.
Project Overview
Apr 3, 2021
Hexapod Robot
The idea is to build a hexapod robot using Inverse Kinematics for leg movements. The goal is to build (or just use and configure) an IK solver that provides scalability for common walking gait use cases: walking (of course), rotate body (row, pitch, yaw), terrain walking, single-leg control, etc. Also, I will be working on electronics and mechanical parts for the project, but I will probably start by simulating everything because it’s cheaper and gives time to work around designing and getting the final parts.
There is plenty of projects like that around and I am yet to find what would be the specifics for each subject, but here are some guidelines that I will be taking from now on:
- Physical robot will be a six 3-DOF (degree of freedom) legged servo powered robot.
- Mechanical joints and body will be self-designed and 3D printed.
- Electronics will be something ready to use and not designed (for now).
- The final controlling system will be a mobile application, but I will probably start with an umbilical cable to power and command the hexapod.
Project name
But still, she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness.
— The Two Towers, “Shelob’s Lair”, J. R. R. Tolkien.
The name is just a reference to my favorite book of all time, Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings trilogy. Besides the fact that spiders have eight legs and not six, I think it is a good name for an Araneae-like robot.