A tensegrity is a self-stressed pin-jointed system consisting of tensile members and compressive members. As its shape can be actively controlled by changing the prestress of its members, it has great potential to be used as a shape-controllable locomotive system. Particularly, the six-strut spherical tensegrity has been studied intensively as a rolling locomotive system. In this study, the rolling gaits of a strut-actuated six-strut spherical tensegrity are investigated. Specifically, a mathematical model for generating the rolling gaits of locomotive spherical tensegrities is presented, and a numerical method combining dynamic relaxation method and genetic algorithm is used to solve the model. Various rolling gaits for the strut-actuated six-strut locomotive spherical tensegrity are identified using this approach. Two basic types of touching-ground triangles, two basic distributions of payload, and six cases for the numbers of used active struts are considered. Several rolling gait primitives are noted, their motion features analyzed, and a simple path-generating strategy is proposed based on idealized rolling gait primitives. A physical prototype of the strut-actuated six-strut locomotive tensegrity is manufactured, and experiments are conducted to verify the rolling gaits and locomotion paths generated by the proposed methods.

中文翻译：

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支柱驱动的六支柱球形张拉整体的滚动步态

张拉整体是由受拉构件和受压构件组成的自应力销连接系统。由于可以通过改变其构件的预应力来主动控制其形状，因此它具有用作形状可控机车系统的巨大潜力。特别是，作为滚动机车系统的六支柱球形张拉整体已被深入研究。在这项研究中，研究了支柱驱动的六支柱球形张拉整体的滚动步态。具体而言，提出了一种生成机车球形张拉整体滚动步态的数学模型，并采用动态松弛法和遗传算法相结合的数值方法求解该模型。使用这种方法可以识别支柱驱动的六支柱机车球形张拉整体的各种滚动步态。考虑了两种基本类型的接地三角形，两种基本的有效载荷分布，以及使用的主动支柱数量的六种情况。注意到了几个滚动步态基元，分析了它们的运动特征，并基于理想化的滚动步态基元提出了一种简单的路径生成策略。制造了支柱驱动的六支柱机车张拉整体的物理原型，并进行了实验以验证所提出的方法产生的滚动步态和运动路径。