Walker (BEAM)

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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 motors. (ed. motors numbering above 3 are uncommon) "Muscle wired" walkers ultilizes Nitinol (nickel - titanium alloy) for its actuators.

BEAM walking robots are creating using something called NV nets. An NV net consists of NV neurons each of which is a very simple oscillator setup. The most common form of BEAM walker is the master slave Bicore, this uses two suspended Bicore arrangements.

A BEAM walker does not use a processor, nor is it programmed in any way! despite this it is able to walk and respond to terrain via resistive input from its motors. This is an extremely clever method for creating locomotion.

An Example of a two motor walker can be seen at TomboT.net[1]

[edit] Genera

  • 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 : Ultilizes Nitinol (nickel - titanium alloy) for its actuators.