The intent of this blog is sort of a lab note. It is to record my thought, the steps and results of the home projects I will be doing. I might write in both English and Chinese depending on my mood, but I will try to write in English as much as I can. My long term plan is to build a quadruped robot similar to Bigdog by Boston Dynamic (profile pic). Since I don't have much budget, I will use pneumatics instead of hydraulics. The robot will be much less powerful (assuming I can finish) comparing to Bigdog, but I don't have high expectations since the project is mainly for fun and to kill time.
The plan can be breakdown into several aspects:
1. Mechanical design. Most likely Catia will be used, though I will need to learn it thoroughly first. Simulate the kinematics and analyze the mechanical strength (FEA)
2. Experimenting all the key components including pneumatic cylinders, solenoid valves, sensors, controllers.
These two aspects should be carried out simultaneously.
There are a lot of difficulties, but mainly due to limited budget. The most difficult part I can think of right now is servo controlled cylinder without an actual servo valve (too expensive). I have some thoughts to solve this which will be elaborated later.
