In recent years, multiple types of locomotion methods for robots have been developed and enabled to adapt to multiple domains. In particular, aerial robots are useful for exploration in several situations, taking advantage of its three-dimensional mobility. Moreover, some aerial robots have achieved manipulation tasks in the air. However, energy consumption for flight is large and thus locomotion ability on the ground is also necessary for aerial robots to do tasks for long time. Therefore, in this work, we aim to develop deformable multirotor robot capable of rolling movement with its entire body and achieve motions on the ground and in the air. In this paper, we first describe the design methodology of a deformable multilinked air-ground hybrid multirotor. We also introduce its mechanical design and rotor configuration based on control stability. Then, thrust control method for locomotion in air and ground domains is described. Finally, we show the implemented prototype of the proposed robot and evaluate through experiments in air and terrestrial domains. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time to achieve the rolling locomotion by multilink structured mutltrotor.

翻译：近年来，机器人已发展出多种运动模式以适应多域环境。其中，空中机器人凭借其三维机动性在多种探测场景中具有独特优势，部分机型甚至可实现空中操作任务。然而，飞行能耗过高导致其续航能力受限，因此地面运动能力成为延长空中机器人作业时间的关键。为此，本研究旨在开发一种可通过整体结构实现滚动运动的可变形多旋翼机器人，使其具备地面与空中双重运动能力。本文首先阐述了可变形多连杆空陆两用多旋翼的设计方法，并基于控制稳定性提出了机械结构与旋翼配置方案。随后，描述了针对空中与地面两域运动的推力控制策略。最后，实现了所提机器人的原型样机，并通过空中与地面域的实验进行了性能评估。据我们所知，这是首次通过多连杆结构多旋翼实现滚动运动的研究。