Walker (BEAM)

In BEAM robotics, a walker is a walking machine that has a driven mode of locomotion by intermittent ground-contacting legs. They usually possess 1 to 12 (generally, three or less) motors. "Muscle wired" walkers utilizes Nitinol (nickel - titanium alloy) for its actuators.

BEAM walking robots contain Nv networks, which consist of NV neurons each of which is a very simple oscillator setup. The most common form of BEAM walker is the master slave Bicore, which uses two suspended Bicore arrangements.

A BEAM walker does not use a processor, nor is it programmed in any way—it walks and responds to terrain via resistive input from its motors. This is an extremely clever method for creating locomotion.

Variations

• unimotor : Driven mode of locomotion via one motor.
• bimotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 2 motors.
• trimotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 3 motors.
• quadramotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 4 motors.
• pentamotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 5 motors.
• hexamotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 6 motors.
• septuamotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 7 motors.
• octamotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 8 motors.
• ennamotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 9 motors.
• dekamotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 10 motors.
• undecmotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 11 motors.
• dodecamotor : Driven mode of locomotion via 12 motors.
• Muscle wired : Utilizes Nitinol (nickel - titanium alloy) for its actuators.

External articles and other references

• Example of a two motor walker at TomboT.net